


Second Chances

by Ana (Anafandom)



Series: Second Chances [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: But he loves his son, Civil War Team Iron Man, F/M, Gen, Howard Stark is a bad father, Not Steve Friendly, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pro-Accords, Reconciliation, Team Cap is full of shit, Team Tony, and he's not evil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-10-15 04:50:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 48,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10550342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anafandom/pseuds/Ana
Summary: Several months after Civil War, Tony Stark has moved on with his life and is doing as all as can be expected. Then Howard and Maria Stark mysteriously appear back in his life, giving Tony and his parents a second chance of being a family and healing old wounds.





	1. Arrival

**Author's Note:**

> This story came about as an exploration of three things I’ve been thinking about for a while.
> 
> 1) I think MCU Howard Stark is a really interesting character. I’m particularly interested in how he went from the young Howard we see in CATFA and Agent Carter, who seemed very Tony-like, to the hard and emotionally distant old Howard from IM2 and AM. It’s obvious that Howard was a bad father, but I like to think he tried. He did his best and he failed, as many people do, but I don’t think he was a horrible abusive ass (not that that’s not a valid interpretation, I just don’t think we have much evidence in the MCU to establish that – that is, it could go either way). I tend to think he started out with the best of intentions and somewhere along the line he became bitter and disillusioned. I also think he loved Tony, just didn’t know how to show it. So this is how I’ve chosen to portray him here.
> 
> 2) A while back I posted a prompt in avengerskink (http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/17385.html?thread=38595817&#t38595817) asking for a reconciliation between Tony and Howard. I have this idea in my head that if Howard could meet Tony now they might get along much better, since Tony is now an adult and would be able to understand his father’s failures better; that is, he can now realize that his father is human and flawed in ways that have nothing to do with Tony. So this is kind of a fill for that prompt (adjusted to post-CW universe).
> 
> 3) In the aftermath of Civil War and Steve’s appalling behavior, I can’t help but wonder what Howard would think of his hero using the shield he gave him to nearly kill his son, not to mention protecting the man who, however unwillingly, murdered him and his wife. I don’t think Howard would be happy. So this is my take on that scenario.
> 
> Timeline note: Marvel made a mess of Tony’s timeline, so I’m taking some liberties. In IM it’s implied that he lost his parents at the age of 17 and I’m gonna stick with that because it makes more sense. So if he was born in 1970 that means the Starks were killed in 1987, not 1991 as stated in CACW. As for Howard, Marvel wiki puts his birth in 1917. That means he was 53 when Tony was born and 70 when he died. Nothing is ever said about Maria, so I’m making it up. In this story she was born in 1930, and had Tony at age 40. Later in life but not impossible. Howard and Maria got married in 1960 (he was 43 and she was 30) and they had some miscarriages before Tony was born. 
> 
> Final note: This story is finished. A new chapter will be posted every 3-4 days. Let me know what you think.

It was dark when he woke up. It took his eyes a few moments to adjust enough to be able to see. He didn’t recognize his location, which seemed odd.

There was a pained groan from somewhere behind him. “Howard?” It was a woman’s voice. His wife. Maria.

Feeling shaky, Howard got up and walked over to his wife and helped her sit up. Her clothes, like his, were dirty and rumpled. There was dried blood on her face, but he couldn’t see a cut. When he felt up his own head he found the same, which was very disconcerting. Where were they? How had they gotten here? What had happened to them? He couldn’t remember.

“Howard, what’s going on?”

“I don’t know. What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I…” She frowned, trying to think. “We were… going somewhere?” She sounded unsure.

Howard tried to think. Had they been going somewhere? Where? No matter how hard he tried, nothing came to him.

“Tony?” Maria asked. “Where’s Tony?

“He’s home, he’s fine,” Howard answered automatically, then paused. Was that right? Had they left Tony at home? He thought so, but… had something happened? Perhaps they’d argued – he and Tony were always arguing…

A little wobbly, Howard and Maria got up and did their best to sort themselves out.

“I can’t find my purse.”

Howard checked his pockets and found his wallet was gone too. Wonderful. Had they been robbed? Knocked on the head? It might explain why they couldn’t remember, but… hadn’t they been in the car? Where was the car? That it been stolen too?

Well, there was no use worrying about it now. They should get home. “Come on.” He took Maria’s hand and they walked to the street. It looked like New York, but how they had ended up in an alley was still a mystery.

“Look,” Maria pointed. A street sign. Definitely New York. Manhattan. A few blocks from the mansion.

“We should go check on Tony,” Howard said. If they’d been robbed, and been recognized, the criminals might have taken his keys to try to get into the house. Not that they’d get through his security measures, but it was best to be sure.

As they started walking Howard began to remember something. They had been going somewhere. He’s had something to do… something he needed to take somewhere. But they’d been going out of the city. How had they gotten here? It made no sense for robbers to dump them back in the city rather than in the middle of the road somewhere. He was sure they’d left New York.

It seemed to be late because there were few people on the street. He checked his watch and found it broken at 7:37, which didn’t help much. Huddling together, he and Maria tried not to attract attention to themselves in their disheveled state.

Still wrecking his brain to remember anything useful, Howard wasn’t paying much attention to his surroundings until Maria tugged on his arm to point at something on the other side of the street. A billboard with flashing neon lights and the Stark Industries logo on it. It seemed to be an ad for something called a Starkpad. The device looked sleek and modern, but Howard had never seen anything like it before and he knew everything SI produced. What the hell was going on?

He and Maria exchanged confused looks, but, not knowing what else to do, they kept going, Howard now scrutinizing everything in sight. There was something wrong. They were in New York, yes, but… it looked different. He started to get a very bad feeling about this.

He spotted a newspaper on the floor and picked it up, hoping to learn something.

It was a bit more than he was expecting, though.

The date was wrong. It couldn’t be. Beside him, Maria gasped. No. There was no way… it couldn’t be 2017, that was impossible.

“Howard…” Maria indicated an article on the left side of the page. The headline read _Ross trial starts tomorrow._

_Former Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross’ trial is set to begin tomorrow. Ross is accused of several counts of human rights violations as well as acting against the Sokovia Accords in what is being called an abuse of power. The most expected testimony, that of Tony Stark, is scheduled for later this week._

Tony. His son. Testifying against a former Secretary of State? And what the hell were the Sokovia Accords?

“Howard, what is this? What is happening? Where are we?”

“I think the question is _when_ are we. We appeared to have travelled in time. To the future.” It was supposed to be impossible, of course, but… how else to explain it? At least it meant Tony was all right. Alive. 2017, he’d be 47 now. Howard would be a hundred years old, so he was probably dead already in this time. Maria as well, perhaps. Most of the people he knew were probably dead too.

“Travelled in time?” His wife’s voice bought him back from his speculations.

“Well, I don’t have a better explanation at the moment.” Should they even go to the mansion? Would Tony be there? Or did he live somewhere else? How would they find him?

“What are we going to do?”

Howard’s mind was going a mile a minute now. If they were in the future, they had to have gotten here somehow. But how? And, most importantly, why? Who could have done this? Howard had  invented a lot of crazy things in his life but a time machine was, sadly, not one of them. No one he knew could do that. Well, no one in 1987. Maybe in 2017 someone had figured it out. Maybe even Tony, the boy was smart. Maybe the two of them together could figure it out. They should find him. The problem was where. The paper said he would testify this week, but he might not even be in New York now.

“Howard!”

Maria had that irritated look on her face, like she’d been trying and failing to get his attention. Right. Yes. They needed a plan.

“We’ll go to the mansion.” Even if Tony wasn’t there, the mansion itself should still exist. They could rest a bit, get cleaned up. There might be something there to help them find Tony.

“Let’s go then.”

The rest of the walk was uneventful. Howard was mostly distracted trying to come up with an explanation for time travel. There were theories that it might be possible, but the energy requirement would be enormous, not to mention the issue of ensuring the integrity of the time traveler. Would it even be possible for them to go back?

Again it took Maria poking him to make him notice they had arrived. The gate outside the grounds looked the same, if not as well cared for. It was also, obviously, locked.

Maria pressed the intercom, but even after several minutes there was no answer. She tried her code next and again nothing happened. Howard’s code also had no effect. “How are we going to get in?” she asked.It was certainly a good question.

With a bit of effort, Howard pried open the intercom box and started fiddling with it. It was a bit different from the system he had installed, but eventually he managed to get the gate to open. They slipped inside and the gate closed again. Howard hoped his tinkering hadn’t triggered an alarm, because they certainly didn’t need the police knocking on the door to arrest them for trespassing. Without identification there was no way to prove it was their house. Assuming, of course, that the house was still theirs. Or Tony’s, at least.

The front door was also locked, of course, and again Howard messed with the security system to get them in.

“It’s so dark and silent,” Maria observed once they were inside.

Fortunately, the electricity was working. With the lights on, they could see that the place was empty, the furniture covered by white sheets and a thin layer of dust everywhere. In silence they walked through the house together, taking everything in. The kitchen was empty, no food anywhere. The piano was still in its room, covered. Howard’s study was also empty, even the safe. It looked as if no one had been there for quite some time.

“What do we do now?”

Howard shook his head in response. He had no idea. And he was tired. Maria too. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do tonight. Let’s just get some rest, we can figure it out tomorrow.”

There was water in the bathroom, at least, so they were able to clean themselves up. In spite of the blood on both of them, there was no sign of any cuts or injuries, which was strange. Howard felt tired and weary, but not hurt.

Their bedrooms were as empty as the rest of the house, but they found clothes in some of the guest rooms. Not theirs, but it would do for now. After changing they went to Howard’s bedroom and laid down together. It had been several years since they’d shared a bedroom, Howard’s odd hours and restlessness having made Maria seek her own space.

“Do you think we’ll be able to find Tony? He’ll be a grown man now.” Maria asked after a while.

“It shouldn’t be that hard. Stark Industries is still going, the office might still be there.”

“But how would we get in? We can’t just say we’re from the past. If that’s even what is happening.”

She had a point, Howard thought. Still, he was much too tired to think about it now. It’d been like this for a while, him getting tired easily, feeling sluggish when before he could go for days with little sleep and still be sharp and productive. God, getting old was a pain.

“We’ll figure something out.”

Before he knew it, Howard was asleep.

*****

Maria shook him awake the next morning. Howard groaned and tried to go back to sleep, but his wife was having none of it and practically dragged him out of bed. He got to the bathroom on shaky feet, though once he’d splashed some water on his face Howard felt a bit more together. He was dying for a cup of coffee.

Maria had laid out clothes for him, which she hadn’t done since the beginning of their marriage. Howard didn’t know why she was being so solicitous now, but shrugged and got dressed. Though the clothes weren’t his they fit well enough, so he couldn’t complain. He idly wondered whose they were.

He found Maria in the kitchen, dressed in her own borrowed clothes and apparently ready to face the day.

“I looked everywhere and this is all I could find.” There were a couple of cans of soup on the table, a bag of dried fruit and a jar of strawberry jam. Not exactly breakfast of champions, but they dug in anyway.

“How long have you been awake?”

“An hour, I guess. I’ve had a better look around and it’s clear that no one has lived here for years. So what now?” she asked once their meager breakfast was finished.

“Did you happen to find any money?”

“No, but some of my jewels are still in my dresser, though not the very expensive ones.”

It had been a long time since Howard had had to worry about money. Even when he didn’t have cash on him he had his credit cards, as well as his own fame. Now he had none of that. Maria’s jewels would certainly come in handy.

“Right. Well, I guess we should find a pawnshop, get some cash, get some decent food and find Tony.” Howard was still hungry.

“And tell him what?”

Howard sighed. He was used to just dealing with things as they happened, trusting that he would figure things out in any given situation, or that his money and name would be enough to sort out any problems. Maria had always liked to plan ahead, to have everything organized and laid out in front of her before she did anything. It had caused them no end of trouble in the beginning, before they learned to work around each other’s different styles. Still, Maria had a point. This was not a typical situation that they could just wing it. No doubt Tony had security at the office and they wouldn’t let just anybody in. Telling people who they were would probably be a bad idea, if they were even believed. They needed more information about this time.

“Let’s find out where to find him first. We might get more information in the papers.”

Neither he nor Maria fancied walking all over New York, so they checked the garage. Howard had a lot of cars, and, luckily, two of them were still there. The keys were nowhere in sight, but Howard didn’t need them anyway. He’d customized all his cars and knew them like the back of his hand. Getting them started was no problem at all.

He chose the least fancy one, though it would probably stand out anyway by virtue of being old, and they drove up to the gate. Again Howard rigged the security system to open the gate and close it once they were out.

In the light of day it was pretty obvious that this wasn’t the New York they knew. As they drove they noticed the differences: buildings, cars and even the way people were dressed, as well as the little devices everyone seemed to have on their hands. Portable telephones, Howard thought. Some of them had the Stark logo on them, Maria told him. It was odd that most people weren’t using it to talk, but looked to be reading something on them. Howard definitely wanted to take a closer look.

Finding a place to park proved impossible, so Maria went into the pawnshop alone while he waited in the car. After they’d gotten some money they found a diner to eat and, hopefully, get some more information.

“We should get a paper. I think I saw a newsstand down the block.”

Howard nodded, digging into his burger.

A group of teenagers entered the diner and sat on the table next to them. One of the boys had a phone in his hand and was showing something on it to the others.

“Spider-Man is really cool,” the kid with the phone said.

“But no one beats Iron Man,” another replied.

“No way, Cap is the best,” a third said.

“No, no, don’t start that again, please,” the last one said. Howard had no idea what they were talking about, but they were loud enough that it was impossible not to listen.

“Cap is boring, and he’s not even an Avenger anymore, he’s a criminal.” That was the second boy, a black kid.

“Because he was set up! Cap isn’t a criminal!” The third looked like the typical all-American kid, blond and fair skinned. He was wearing a T-shirt with the American flag on it. Howard rolled his eyes.

“Guys, come on…” The last one was a skinny guy with glasses and dark hair.

“He destroyed an airport, that’s a crime. Besides, he isn’t that great. He’s just strong, big deal. The Hulk is a lot stronger.”

“Just strong?”

“Guys!”

“Iron Man is the best because he’s smart. He made the suit himself. In a cave. While being held by terrorists. Now that’s a hero. Also, he helps people.”

“So he’s smart, Cap is still the best.”

Howard wondered who they were talking about.

The black kid snorted. “I’m going to apply to an internship at Stark Industries in the summer. I hear Mr Stark shows up to talk the interns sometimes. I might get an autograph.”

Hearing his name, Howard leaned forward.

The kid continued. “That would be super cool, getting to meet Iron Man.”

Wait, what? Howard played the conversation in his head again. Were they talking about Tony? Maria gave him an alarmed look; she’d been listening to the conversation too. Unfortunately, the waitress showed up to take the kids’ orders and they changed the subject. Howard wanted to ask the boys about Tony but he didn’t want to draw attention.

Still, it stayed on his mind, especially the part about being held by terrorists. What had happened to Tony?

Howard had never had the best relationship with his son. He was aware that he wasn’t a good father – hell, he was aware that he wasn’t that great a person; too much blood on his hands. He was too hard on Tony, he knew (and didn’t need Maria to keep reminding him, thank you very much), but the world was a hard place and it was even harder to those on top. He wanted Tony to be prepared, to be able to stand his ground no matter what. Coddling wouldn’t help, because nobody else would; people would in fact take advantage if he ever showed the slightest weakness. A tough skin was a necessity in business. Plus, Howard had never been good with kids, even when he’d been one himself – too smart, too ambitious, too different. There was too much of himself in Tony, too much of the things Howard didn’t like about himself. He could see Tony’s potential, for good and bad. Sometimes it felt like looking into a mirror. He didn’t want his son to end up like him, a bitter old man, frustrated with his life but unable to change it.

Had Tony made the same mistakes Howard had? Did he feel trapped and overwhelmed? Did he have children he didn’t know how to relate to?

Like himself, Tony hated being told what to do. He was confrontational and that was a bad combination for them. It seemed that whenever Howard and Tony were in the same room they argued about something and ended up shouting at each other. Every fucking time Howard told himself he’d keep his head since he was the adult, but every time he lost his temper, felt exasperated, angry and lost. He knew he was fucking it up, he could see it plain as day, but he didn’t know how to fix it. He’d never been good with people beyond the superficial level and the more he fucked up the angrier he got, and then he fucked it up even more. It’d gotten so bad that he sometimes purposefully avoided Tony so there wouldn’t be a fight. Then, of course, he’d feel like a piece of shit for being such a coward and for not being there for his son when he needed him because it was easier to let Maria or Jarvis handle things. It was fucking exhausting and it had only gotten worse as Tony got older. Howard had been hoping fervently for the day he’d be able to have an actual fucking conversation with his son without needing a drink afterwards.

Would that time be now? He knew nothing about the man Tony had become. Thirty years had passed. Tony wasn’t a kid anymore. What was he like now?

While he’d been lost in his musing, the teens had gotten their food and two of them had left, All-American and the one with the phone. The black kid and the one with glasses remained. Howard figured it wouldn’t hurt to try and get some information from them.

“Hey,” he said, getting the boys’ attention. They looked at him wearily. “Can you tell me where I can find the headquarters for Stark Industries?” If the boy was planning an internship there he would probably know that.

They did not look impressed. “Stark Tower,” the black kid said, sounding as if it was the most obvious thing in the world and Howard was an idiot for not knowing.

He managed to rein in his temper. “And where is that?”

“Dude, have you been living under a rock?” the one with glasses asked.

“It’s our first time in the city,” Maria said, probably hoping to make them sound less moronic.

“Well, it’s this huge building with Stark written at the top a few blocks that way,” the black kid pointed. “Can’t miss it.”

“Thank you,” Maria said with a smile. The boys nodded and turned away.

Howard and Maria exchanged a look. “Right, let’s go.” Howard paid for their meal and they walked out. Now that they knew where to look, he could indeed see the building in the distance, and it did say ‘Stark’ at the top.

“Plan?” Maria asked, looking longingly at the building as they walked to the car. Howard was trying to come up with something when Maria grabbed his arm. “Look!”

They’d come to a newsstand and in one of the magazines there was a picture of Tony and a ginger woman on the cover, both dressed in sharp suits. The headline said “ _Stark and Potts: making the world better_.” Tony looked older, obviously, but it was still unmistakably him; their boy had grown up. In the picture, Tony was smiling charmingly, leaning slightly into the woman. Who was she?

Maria got the magazine while Howard asked for today’s paper. After paying, they hurried to the car to read.

“It says this woman, Pepper Potts, is CEO of Stark Industries,” Maria told him, magazine opened in her hands.

“What? What about Tony?”

“He’s involved, I think. They’re talking about a September Foundation, which has something to do with research grants. And there’s something else called the Avengers’ Relief Fund, ‘ _a non-profit organization set up to help people and places affected by Avengers battles as well as natural disasters’_.”

Avengers? The boys at the diner had mentioned that. Howard didn’t like it.. The word battle had not gone unnoticed. What had Tony gotten involved in?

“It talks about the Sokovia Accords here too.” She turned the page and gasped.

Howard took the magazine from her to see it. There was a picture of Tony in some sort of suit of armor (“he built the suit himself,” the boy in the diner had said), only his face visible. Beside it, another picture of the suit flying over New York. Below, there was another picture with the caption _The New Avengers_.

There was Tony on the left in a red and gold suit. Next to him another person in a suit, this one bulkier and mostly grey. Then a weird bald guy with pink skin and a cape. Next a woman in a suit with silvery wings – which resembled Janet Pym’s old suit – and on the far right a gigantic green-skinned guy in purple pants. The caption read _Left to right: Iron Man – Tony Stark, War Machine – James Rhodes, Vision, Wasp – Hope van Dyne and Hulk – Bruce Banner_.

“James Rhodes, isn’t that Tony’s friend from MIT?” Maria asked, pointing at his name. The man’s face wasn’t visible in the picture though.

“Yeah.” Tony had brought his friend over for a few days last summer. The boy was older than Tony, like all his classmates. He had seemed mature and level-headed.

“Hope van Dyne, that’s the Pyms’ girl, isn’t it?”

Howard nodded. He and Hank Pym had never been friends though they frequented the same circles. After his wife’s death, however, the man had gone completely off the rails and turned into a paranoid ass. Frankly, Howard had always liked Janet better(she was always charming and pleasant, unlike her husband),her death had been a terrible tragedy. The Pyms had a daughter, younger than Tony. They had only seen her a handful of times. This was probably her, grown up too and wearing a new version of her mother’s suit.

“She looks like Janet,” Maria commented. Howard wondered if Hank was still alive. He was younger than Howard, he’d be in his 70s now.

They read the whole article and the paper and, while they learned a lot of things, others were still unclear as they didn’t have the necessary background knowledge about the people and events mentioned.

Tony was indeed this Iron Man, and was part of a group of superheroes known as The Avengers. They’d saved the world from an alien invasion, which Howard was having trouble believing. The Sokovia Accords seemed to be an international oversight committee to supervise the Avengers and was apparently a new thing. Tony was no longer CEO of SI, but was still head of R&D and was still creating cutting-edge technology for the company, which was doing very well under its new CEO.

What really interested Howard though was the Iron Man suit. It looked absolutely incredible in the pictures, and Howard was itching to put his hands on it and figure out how it worked. His son had created something amazing, surpassing Howard’s wildest expectations, and was using it to protect the people of the world as a hero. To say Howard was proud would be an understatement.

“Guess our boy did all right for himself, huh?”

Maria nodded, proud as well. “It sounds dangerous, though. How are we going to get to see him?”

That was going to be a big problem. Considering all they’d learned, it was highly unlikely that they’d be able to walk in off the street and talk to him. There was probably all kinds of security at Stark Tower.

“What if we get him to come to us? Send him a message somehow?” Maria said after a few minutes of silence.

The suggestion had merit, Howard thought, as an idea came to him. “We can use the mansion’s security system. Tony must have some way to check it, so if I rig something he’d probably come investigate.” It was an assumption, but a fair one. The fact that the house was still there, even if empty, meant Tony still owned it – why would he sell it anyway? He’d grown up in that house – so a security breach would get his attention. And even if he didn’t come himself, whoever he sent would likely contact him and they’d be able to send a message anyway. Yeah, it might work.

“Great, let’s go.”

During the drive back Howard and Maria discussed what to tell Tony or whoever showed up. They would probably be able to prove who they were through blood tests and fingerprints – Howard and Maria’s prints were in the SHIELD database, he knew – and if aliens really had invaded Earth (he was still having trouble with that idea) a certain amount of weirdness wouldn’t be completely unexpected. Maria worried about how Tony would react given that they had likely been dead for a while.

They also wondered if it would be possible for them to go back to their own time, which might mean worrying about changing history given what they now knew about the future. There was also, of course, the matter of figuring out how they’d traveled in time in the first place, not to mention what they’d been doing before finding themselves in the future, which they still couldn’t remember.

It was Maria’s idea to stop by a store to get some food for later, as there was still nothing at the house and they didn’t know how long it would take for Tony to show up.

Once back, Maria announced she was going to make a more thorough check of the house while Howard set to work on the security system. It was basically the one he’d installed with some upgrades. Back in his day, he’d had a link with SHIELD’s headquarters in case of a break-in, but that didn’t seem to be working anymore. The house was linked to another system, though, possibly the one at the Tower (which, according to the magazine article, housed SI offices and labs as well as Tony and the Avengers themselves).

It took him a while to rewrite the security system and include in it a code he hoped Tony would find familiar enough to want to investigate. It was something he knew Tony had seen 30 years ago (for him), but, like Howard, Tony had a better memory for mechanical things than personal ones, so he hoped his son would still remember it.

He’d just about finished it when Maria showed up, showered and dressed, with sandwiches for them. Back in the beginning of their marriage she had done that often, shown up in the workshop or office with food to get him to take a break. After a while, however, Howard had started getting irritated with her interruptions, especially when he was stumped and frustrated. He’d ended up being a right bastard to her often enough that she left him to his own devices. Well, she’d left him to Jarvis, who never reacted to being yelled at (he knew better than Maria that Howard didn’t mean it, and was, frankly, more than used to him and his shit at that point to be fazed by anything). Jarvis was probably dead now too, Howard realized sadly. It was a terrible thought; Jarvis was his oldest friend except for Peggy, but obviously he saw Jarvis a lot more often than Peggy. Shit, Peggy was likely dead as well.

“How did it go?” his wife asked, bringing him back to the moment.

“It’s done, now we just have to wait for someone to show up. Did you find anything?”

“Personal things are mostly gone but the furniture and decorations are still here, except for some of the more expensive paintings. It looks like Tony just packed up his and our things and left. It’s hard to tell how long it’s been, though. There isn’t a lot of dust, which means someone probably comes by every now and then to clean up a bit.”

“The security system has been updated and it’s working fine, so there’s maintenance for that as well.”

After the food was gone, Howard took a shower and they settled in to wait. It was not something he was very fond of, but there was nothing else he could do in an empty house (the workshop was locked with a much more sophisticated security system that he couldn’t disable, he’d discovered). He tried to get a drink to settle his nerves but Maria shot him a look of such displeasure that Howard gave it up. It wouldn’t do to be tipsy when Tony arrived anyway; they had enough problems talking when he was sober.

Despite his anxiety, however, Howard found himself struggling to stay awake. Even though he hadn’t actually done much today, he still felt tired. Might be an aftereffect of the time travel, he thought, right before drifting to sleep in the armchair in the piano room, music drifting into his ear.

When he woke up, Iron Man was standing above him, glowing hand pointed right at his head.


	2. Confrontation

Tony woke up from yet another nightmare about Siberia. Even though it’d been nearly eight months now, he still woke in a cold sweat most nights, the image of the shield falling on his head and heart etched into his mind. The panic attacks during the day had lessened at least, but the nightmares were still going strong. He’d tried not sleeping and it’d only made it worse. The sleeping pills helped a bit, however reluctant he’d been to take them, so he got a few hours a night (or day, depending on when he crashed), but eventually the nightmares would come. His therapist kept telling him that they’d go away at some point and as far as Tony was concerned that day could not come soon enough.

Going to therapy was not something he’d ever really wanted to do even if, in retrospect, it was something he’d desperately needed. Still, Rhodey had practically dragged him, kicking and screaming, and Tony had to admit he was grateful for it. Despite his skepticism it had helped. The fact that Rhodey had also been seeing a therapist (a different one) and even Vision and Pepper had gone to a few sessions of their own made it easier for him to accept it as a potentially good thing. Yep, they were one big messed up family. It wasn’t so bad though. He did feel better than he had in the immediate aftermath of the so-called “Civil War” ( _Christ, what a stupid name_ ) – not that it would be possible to feel worse. He was dealing, getting things done. Rhodey had his braces and could walk again, SI had branched into the world of prosthetics and mobility assistance technology, the Accords were doing as well as could be expected and the Avengers were back in business with a new line up. Tony and Pepper had sorted out their issues and were back to being friends, which was a huge relief to him. Peter showed up from time to time to hang out in the lab, and even Bruce was back from wherever he’d run off to. Ross had gotten himself fired and was facing criminal charges for violating the Accords and being a generally manipulative bastard. He would probably end up in prison, which was an outcome Tony was looking forward to seeing. All in all, it was as good as it was likely to get, given everything.

Rogers and his bunch were still on the loose, but Tony had decided that they weren’t his problem anymore, he was done with them. Romanoff too, wherever she was. If there was one thing that whole mess had taught him was that he needed to find better people to surround himself with, people who actually liked him or, at the very least, respected him. It had been a harsh wake-up call to realize his former teammates didn’t actually give a fuck about him and were only using him. It was a lesson he should have learned already, but for a genius he could be pretty stupid sometimes. Better late than never, though.

Groaning, Tony got out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom. He was finally recovered from his injuries from Siberia – thanks to three surgeries and a new and improved artificial sternum – so that walking no longer felt like torture. Since they’d all come back to live in the Tower (renamed Stark Tower) several months ago he’d been sticking to a more normal (healthy) routine and that had helped his recovery (Rhodey and Vision had teamed up with Friday to mother him to death, enlisting Peter and Bruce’s help as well). It was nice to be cared for; he didn’t mind nearly as much as he pretended to, which they all knew.

Morning ablutions done, Tony got dressed and headed to the workshop. He still needed to analyze yesterday’s bizarre suit power loss. Some nutcase had tried attacking the Tower with some kind of magical artifact – Tony hated magic and magical gizmos, they were nothing but trouble. Whatever the doohickey was supposed to do, however, it hadn’t worked – kinda like Loki’s scepter back in the invasion with its performance issues. It had drained most of the energy of the Arc Reactor in the suit, but as far as Tony could tell – based on villain-of-the-week’s confusion and frustration – that had not been the expected outcome (and again he had been glad that he didn’t actually need the reactor to stay alive anymore – he’d been thanking his lucky stars, such as they were, since Siberia; otherwise Rogers would have actually killed him instead of merely trying. And wasn’t that a lovely thought.). After that, though, the guy, whoever he was, had disappeared. Fucking magic. Tony had no idea what the whole thing had been about beyond yet one more person trying to kill him, and he’d gotten a mostly dead suit and a killer headache for his trouble.

The puzzling part though was what had happened to the energy. The reactor wasn’t damaged, it had simply lost power, which shouldn’t be possible, not like that. Something had drained the energy and Tony couldn’t figure out where it’d gone. Energy like that didn’t just disappear, it had to go somewhere, be transformed into something else. It didn’t look as if it had gone into Loki wannabe’s glowstick of destiny, so where the fuck had it gone? He’d had Friday running simulations all night and he still had nothing.

“Boss, Miss van Dyne is here to see you,” Friday said, startling Tony.

“Yeah, right. Tell her I’ll be right there.”

Tony liked Hope, but these days he was even more cautious about who he let into the workshop. She didn’t seem to mind though, and certainly never acted as if she was entitled to whatever she wanted, unlike certain other people of his acquaintance.

It had been a surprise to hear from her after the “Civil War”. She had _not_ been happy about what Lang had used her father’s suit for, and had offered her help apprehending Roger’s team as well as sorting out the political mess they’d left behind. Though he’d been skeptical – why would Pym’s daughter want to help him? – she’d won him over. She was not her father, just like Tony wasn’t his; it would have been unfair not to at least give her a chance. It turned out she was pretty sharp and really good with politics, which was exactly what he’d needed. Their ideas on the Accords were similar and Hope was a woman who knew how to get things done. It was frankly a relief to have someone around who understood the big picture and knew how important public relations were. Tony wasn’t entirely sure he would call her a friend just yet, but she was, at least, a trusted colleague and teammate (more than some other people he tried not to think about), one he was fairly sure would not betray him at the first opportunity. They hadn’t had a lot of calls since she’d officially joined the team, but on those few instances she’d proven herself useful, resourceful and reliable.

“Hey, Hope.” She was dressed in a business suit and looked, as usual, efficient and put together.

She smiled at him and got right down to business. “I hear you had some trouble yesterday.”

“Yeah, some villain wannabe, they’re a dime a dozen these days. He got away and we’ve had no luck tracking him down yet. No idea what he wanted, aside from being a pain.” And really, who attacked on a Sunday? Didn’t villains know about weekends? It was a good thing the guy hadn’t stayed long, ‘cause Tony had been the only one at the Tower at the time. Vision had been exploring the city as he liked to do on weekends, Bruce had been getting his weird teas in the weekend fair, and Rhodey had been visiting his aunt in Philly.

“Have you sent a report to the Accords Panel?”

“Yeah, last night before I crashed. I’m still looking into it.”

She nodded. “I’ve received a request for a new amendment to the Accords.”

Besides him, Hope was the most knowledgeable about politics and contracts, so she and Tony now shared the responsibility for dealing with the Accords Panel. Pepper helped sometimes, but she also had a multinational company to run, so her time was limited. Hope had resigned as CEO of Pym Technologies, leaving her father in charge once again, so she could dedicate her time to helping him sort out the Accords and the mess Roger and his buddies had made – and she’d been an absolute godsend. It was an ongoing project since new amendments kept being proposed and had to be discussed and decided on. The Avengers now had a seat in the Accords Panel to give their perspective on the issues presented and the legislation proposed. It was certainly a lot better than the way it had been done before, when they’d been told to either sign or retire. They had their hands on the wheel as Natasha had said, thought she was no longer around to help steer; it was Tony and Hope doing it now.

They spent nearly two hours talking things through. Hope said she’d meet with the Panel so Tony could keep working on finding out more about the latest attack, which was just fine with him. Panel meetings were important, he knew, but they were a pain – there was a reason he’d always avoided board meetings – so he was always glad when Hope attended instead of him. Spending time in the lab was a much better use of his time.

After Hope left Rhodey and Vision showed up with lunch and they went over what he and Hope had discussed as well as theories regarding yesterday’s villain. They were joined by Bruce in the lab later to go over Friday’s data, which wasn’t much, just some odd energy readings close to the Tower that coincided with the timing of the attack.

“We should check it out anyway,” Rhodey said.

“Scans show nothing out of the ordinary aside from that one spike,” Friday told them. “No unusual activity and nothing unusual reported in the vicinity either.”

“What about CCTV?”

“There aren’t cameras everywhere, but from what I can see there is nothing suspicious.”

They poured over the attack and the mystery of the vanishing energy again for a while before finally conceding defeat. Rhodey sighed. “Maybe the guy will show up again.”

“I’ll be on the lookout for anything new, Boss.”

Tony nodded. “Well then, if that’s all I’ve got other stuff to do.”

He soon got lost in his various projects for SI and the Avengers. Even after two years Tony still missed Jarvis, though it was getting easier. Friday did the best she could with what she had and Tony was grateful for it, but… she wasn’t Jarvis. It helped that he’d brought the bots over and he now had them to keep him company in the workshop. They couldn’t talk back like Jarvis used to do, but their presence was familiar and comforting anyway. It was a reminder that he hadn’t lost everything. Also, it was getting easier being around Vision without thinking of Jarvis. Vision was his own person, even if a part of him was Jarvis, and it wasn’t fair to treat him badly because he was a reminder of Jarvis. Now, at least, that reminder was more of a fond nostalgia than the sharp pain of absence.

*****

It was late at night (Bruce had already brought him dinner) when Friday alerted him of something strange.

“What is it? Is it Loki wannabe again?”

“I don’t think so, Boss. There seems to be a security breach at Stark mansion. The security codes have been tampered with.”

“Show me.” The nearest computer screen lit up with the information and Tony frowned. That was odd. The gate and door had been opened but no alarms had sounded and the code change was… what the hell was that? It looked like someone had written in random bits of code that made no sense. “Friday, tell Vision to get ready. We’re going to go take a look. And tell Rhodey to be on stand-by.”

Once the suit closed around him, he called up the code again in the internal display. There was something almost… familiar… about those random bits, but Tony couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

Vision met him on the roof, phasing through the ceiling instead of using elevators and doors like a normal person. Friday had already apprised him of the situation so they took off immediately, flying towards the mansion Tony hadn’t set foot in in nearly 30 years.

From up above there was no sign that there was anything out of the ordinary, but there wouldn’t be. Whoever had got in had managed to fool the security system. It wasn’t the most advanced, not like the ones he’d built for the house in Malibu or the Tower, or any of the properties he regularly visited. There was little of value in the house anyway aside from the furniture and a few pieces of art. And who would be dumb enough to try to rob Iron Man’s house? Even if he no longer lived there.

Some of the lights were on in the west wing, where the family rooms were. From the suit’s heat sensors he could tell that there were two people inside, probably in the piano room. There were no other energy readings. With a signal to Vision, they touched down as silently as possible and walked to the door. Vision got it opened and they entered. The suit wasn’t exactly the best for stealth (he was still working on it) but he tried anyway.

In the piano room he could see a woman lying on the couch with her back to him and a man asleep in the armchair – rather strange behavior for burglars. Tony took a step forward and froze. He knew that man. Not taking his eyes off him, Tony walked over, no longer bothering to be quiet, and readied a repulsor shot. The man woke up with the noise and looked up at him, startled.

The man looked like his father. But it couldn’t be. His father was dead. He’d seen it happen on that horrible video in a fucking bunker in fucking Siberia with his fucking murderer standing right fucking there. He saw his father’s face smashed by that fucking metal hand, saw the blood dripping from his head and nose. He heard the sickening sound of bones breaking, the thump of his body as it hit the ground, discarded like trash when the Winter Soldier went for his mother still in the car. It couldn’t be. What kind of sick joke was this?

Tony felt his throat closing up, panic crawling up his spine and forced himself to breathe. He was Tony Stark and he would not break.

“Who the fuck are you and what are you doing here?” Tony asked through gritted teeth. “You have thirty seconds before I shoot.”

“Tony,” the man said, and he fucking sounded like his father.

“Tony.” The second voice came from the couch and Tony turned that way, keeping his hand as steady as he could. No, no, no. The woman looked like his mother. His mom, who he’d seen strangled by a human hand, who he’d heard begging for her life, struggling to draw breath, tear-filled eyes wide with fear. No. No. NO.

He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t draw air in. His legs felt like jelly and only the suit’s mechanics were keeping him up. He looked from one person to the other, trying to make sense of it, trying to get the image of his parents’ death out of his head. His dad’s bloodied face, his mom’s scared eyes.

His hand dropped, powering down. Tony still couldn’t breathe. Locked inside the suit he felt like he was falling again, falling from the portal, the image of that massive fleet burned into his brain. Falling, he was falling. He was going to die splashed on the pavement. He was going to die and his mom and dad were dead too, killed by a friend, like he had been. There was the shield, his father’s shield, falling, going for his heart, the Arc Reactor. Obie was standing over him (or was it Steve? they kept blurring one into the other), smiling as he ripped Tony’s heart out of his chest. His parents were screaming somewhere behind him, pleading for help, but he couldn’t turn around. He was paralyzed by his own weapon and Obie (Steve) was going to kill them. They were all going to die because he hadn’t done enough, he hadn’t been good enough, fast enough, smart enough. And he couldn’t fucking _breathe_.

Then the suit opened up and he tumbled out. There was someone beside him talking to him. A familiar voice.

“Sir. Sir, please, you have to breathe. Take a breath, Sir.”

“Jarvis,” he rasped out, trying to breathe. No. No, Jarvis was gone. He was dead, like his mom and dad. They were all dead and he was all alone.

“Sir, you need to breathe. Please. Tony.”

Vision. It was Vision. Vision called him Tony. Jarvis didn’t, never had. Not because he couldn’t, but because he didn’t want to. It was their thing, the Sir.

Tony focused and found himself sprawled on the floor, Vision supporting him looking worried.

“Breathe, Tony. Like this.” He proceeded to demonstrate, chest rising and falling, even though Vision didn’t breathe, he didn’t need to. But Tony copied him anyway, trying to regain control of himself. It was a panic attack. He was fine, he’d had them before. It would pass, he would be fine. He would be fine. He just had to breathe and wait for it to pass. It always did. It always did.

After what felt like an eternity, Tony got himself back together, though his arms and legs were still shaking and he felt faint and light-headed. He didn’t try to get up, knowing he’d just fall back again. The suit was still standing there and now he could hear Friday talking too.

“Boss? Boss, are you all right? Your vitals are not good. Should I alert someone? Colonel Rhodes? Doctor Banner? Boss, what should I do?” Poor Friday sounded panicked, she didn’t have much experience with his panic attacks, at least not while away from the Tower and nearby help.

“I’m okay, Fri. Don’t call anybody yet.”

Tony looked away from the suit and to the left, where those fucking people who looked like his parents were standing, fear and worry etched in their faces. No. That couldn’t be. They were _not_ his parents. His parents were dead.

“Who are you?” he asked again. He was well aware that he looked anything but menacing right now, but the suit was still there, and Friday could still fire on his say so.

It was not-his-mother who answered, making an aborted movement to come forward. “It’s us, Tony. Your parents. Are you all right?”

“My parents are dead.”

“I don’t know what happened, Tony, but it’s us. We traveled in time or something. We got here last night. I messed with the security code to get you here. We don’t know how we got here, but it’s us, you can test it.” It was not-Howard who spoke now. The voice was right, but Tony had never heard that pleading tone from his father.

“Time travel. Yeah, right. You can’t time travel if you’re dead.” _You can’t time travel at all_ , he wanted to add.

“Well, I don’t know. I don’t know what the hell happened but we’re here.” Now he sounded more like his father, exasperated and irritated because Tony wouldn’t do what he wanted.

“Howard,” not-Maria said, in the tone she used to reprimand his dad (and him) when he was being a dick. Then she turned to him. “Sweetheart, I know it seems hard to believe, it’s hard for us too, but we’re telling the truth.”

“We shall have to verify your claim,” Vision said, standing and putting himself between Tony and not-his-parents.

“Verify away. Our fingerprints are in the SHIELD database, probably blood samples too,” not-Howard replied.

“Well, too bad there is no more SHIELD,” Tony told him, watching his surprise with grim satisfaction.

“There isn’t? What happened to it?”

“Got infiltrated by Hydra.”

“What? Hydra is gone.”

“Yeah, no, it’s still alive and kicking, and trying to kill me.” With Vision’s help, Tony got up, straightening up as best as he could even though he still felt a bit woozy. Damn panic attack.

“Please put you right hand forward, palm up,” Vision said to not-Howard.

To Tony’s surprise, the man complied without fuss and Vision scanned his hand and his whole body. Then he turned to not-Maria, who extended her hand without being asked.

“Fingerprints are a match,” he announced. Friday had taken her own scans and confirmed it. Still, that meant nothing. It was possible to fake fingerprints, and like not-Howard had said, theirs were on SHIELD’s record. That meant Hydra had them too. And Hydra was good at infiltration.

“That doesn’t prove anything,” Tony said. Whatever these people wanted from him, they would not get it.

“We can do a DNA analysis back at the Tower’s lab,” Vision said and Tony shook his head.

“Hell no. These people are not going anywhere near the Tower. In fact, I’m done with his ridiculous charade. You’re going to prison for breaking and entering. I’m calling the police.”

“Tony, please. It is us. Let us prove it to you. Whatever you need us to do, we’ll do it.” Not-Maria looked earnest and Tony just couldn’t deal with it. He needed to get out of here before he had another fucking panic attack and gave these fucking bastards any more ammunition against him.

“Anthony Edward Stark, don’t you turn your back on your mother like that!”

Tony stopped. He’d heard that exact phrase with that exact tone before, one time he’d had a fight with his mom. It was an unusual occurrence, it was Howard he’d always fought with, but sometimes his anger with his father spilled over to her and he lashed out.

“Ask us anything, honey.”

Trying to rein in his anger, Tony turned back to not-Howard. “Fine, then. Prove it to me. What did I ask for my 7th birthday?”

Not-Howard stared. “That was 10 years ago, Tony, I don’t remember.”

“All right, what about what I asked for my 16th birthday?”

“I…” The man sighed and looked at not-mom. “I don’t know, Tony. I’m not… I’m not good with that sort of thing.”

Well, that was true at least. It was hard to remember when one was never around and didn’t give a fuck. He probably didn’t even know when his birthday was. Well, the real Howard didn’t.

“You said you wanted a car,” not-mom said. “You said you’d build it yourself.”

“That’s right, I remember now. You had specs, you showed it to Jarvis, he told me.”

Tony didn’t know what to think. It was true, though they could have come by this information somehow. He had shown Jarvis the specs, but he had no idea whether his father had known about it. He’d never actually built the thing, and had destroyed the specs in a fit of anger after yet another fight with his father.

“It had a new engine, Jarvis said. He said it looked impressive. I was gonna ask to see it.”

He wasn’t. Of course he wasn’t. He didn’t care. “Yeah, right.”

“Tony, for fuck’s sake. I know I haven’t been a good father, all right, but… Jesus, we’re telling the truth.”

But it wasn’t possible. His parents were dead. He knew that. He watched it happen, he still had nightmares about it. They were dead. Obie had been the one to identify the bodies, though. He said he’d do it because the accident had been pretty awful and there had been a lot of damage (because they hadn’t died in an accident. Fuck, had Obie known? Had he known all along? Shit.). But Jarvis had seen them too, in the morgue. And he’d supervised the preparations for the funeral. Jarvis – human Jarvis – wouldn’t lie to him (his Jarvis hadn’t either). They were dead.

Weren’t they?

Confused and overwhelmed, Tony turned to Vision, hoping for some guidance.

“Let us take them back to the Tower for tests. They can stay in the quarantine rooms until we have more evidence.”

“But it’s not possible,” Tony said, aware that he sounded like a frightened kid. “They’re dead.”

“My existence should not be possible either, yet here I am.”

Well, that was a good point. Time travel. Was that any less crazy than aliens and magic? Tony looked back at his maybe-parents, feeling his heart constrict inside his chest. Could it be? “Right. Let’s go then.” He tried to sound assertive, but he didn’t think he quite managed it.

“Shall we call for a car?”

“The BMW is working,” maybe-Howard said. “We used it to go out this morning.”

“Fine. You drive then,” Tony told him. “Vision will go with you, so don’t try anything funny.”

“What about you?” maybe-Maria asked.

Tony gestured at the suit. “I’ve got my own ride.” Obligingly, Friday opened the suit to let him in. He saw maybe-Howard open his mouth to say something, but Tony closed down the faceplate and took off, breaking a window to get out (he’d have to get someone to come over and fix it later). He really needed to get away from here and process this insanity in the privacy of his home, away from… these people, whoever they were.

It was crazy and impossible, but… god he wanted it to be true.


	3. Investigation

The drive to the Tower was made in silence. After Tony had left, Howard and Maria had looked at each other helplessly. Things had not gone well at all. It had occurred to them, obviously, that Tony would not believe them right away, but the reaction they’d seen had been a lot more extreme than they’d anticipated. Clearly their death had been traumatic for Tony.

Vision (and now that he had seen him (what it a him?) up close Howard had no idea what the hell he/it was) told them to accompany him so they’d gone to the garage for the car. The gates opened automatically and though Howard wanted to know how he kept quiet. Now was not the time to ask questions, he figured.

Except for giving directions, Vision said nothing, just watched them from the back seat. Howard could feel his gaze at the back of his head and whenever he glanced into the rearview mirror the… man?... was looking at him with an inscrutable expression that set Howard on edge.

Maria put a hand on his leg and gave him a tight smile. She was worried about Tony. He knew that look well, there was always something to worry about with Tony, especially the last couple of years when he’d been away at college. Maria hadn’t thought it was a good idea for him to go because he was so young, but Tony had been excited and in the end she couldn’t deny him. Howard worried too, of course – god only knew what a 15 year-old kid would get up to in college – but keeping Tony at home wouldn’t have done anybody any good. There had been problems, but so far (back then) nothing too terrible.

Vision directed them to a side entrance. The door opened when they got near, making Howard wonder how the system knew they were authorized to enter. Maybe Tony had already cleared them, he was probably there already – flying was much faster than driving after all.

They walked into an elevator that started moving without anyone pressing any buttons (in fact, there were no buttons that Howard could see). It opened into a large floor full of medical equipment and several beds separated by privacy curtains, all unoccupied. They went left and came to a closed door, which also opened automatically. Motion sensors, maybe. On the other side there was a small lab and three rooms side by side facing the lab, all with glass walls. In each room there was a bed, a chair and monitoring equipment. Vision gestured to the one on the right and they went in.

“Please wait here.” The door closed and clicked, locking them in. Vision turned away from them and sunk through the floor like a ghost, disappearing from sight.

Maria yelped in surprise and clutched his arm. What the hell was that guy? It couldn’t be human.

With nothing else to do, they sat on the bed to wait.

“Howard…” Maria began. Then she shook her head at a loss.

Howard looked around, spotting a red light in the upper corner. A security camera. They were being monitored, which wasn’t surprising. Was Tony watching them? What was he thinking?

“That was not supposed to happen,” Maria said at last. “Did you see the look on his face? God, Howard, he was terrified. What happened?”

He had no answer for her. He’d seen people zoned out like that before, soldiers in the war. Shellshock, it was called. Why would Tony react like that to them? What the hell had happened to him?

When he’d stumbled out of the suit he’d been wide-eyed and pale as a ghost. Vision had tried to talk to him, but it was as if Tony couldn’t see or hear him. The female voice from the armor had told them that Tony’s vital signs were going crazy and still Tony didn’t respond. And Howard and Maria had just stood there like a pair of idiots, unable to do anything to help their son since they’d been the ones to cause his distress in the first place. It had been a horrible experience made worse by the fact that they didn’t know what was going on.

Howard remembered the time Tony had broken his arm falling down the stairs (only the last few steps, thankfully). Tony had been about six years old and he’d screamed like a banshee. Howard had nearly had a heart attack at the sound. He’d hurried from his office to find Tony crumbled at the bottom of the stairs, blood dripping from a cut on his head, crying his little eyes out and screaming to wake the dead. And Howard had stood there frozen, not knowing what to do, until Jarvis appeared. Maria had been out that day so Howard had been (as always) grateful for Jarvis, who was much better at comforting a crying child than him. Jarvis had looked at him, standing there like a useless lump, and told him to call an ambulance. That had finally gotten him moving and he’d all but yelled at whoever answered the phone to get someone there for his son. By the time the ambulance arrived Tony had calmed down a bit, clutching Jarvis, and let the EMTs look him over. Once in the ambulance his son had looked at him pleadingly, good arm extended and said “daddy”. And Howard, to his everlasting shame, had turned and walked back in the house, felling like the worst father in the world and the most horrible human being on the planet. He couldn’t deal. He just couldn’t deal. He didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how to be what Tony wanted (needed) and he despised himself for it.

Jarvis had yelled at him and he’d responded that he’d take the car and meet them at the hospital in a bit. He’d gone into the house and just stood there, filled with despair and self-loathing. For a good ten minutes he’d screamed in rage and helplessness, breaking everything in sight until he’d calmed down enough to drive. If not for the fact that he’d be needed to authorize treatment for Tony he might have stayed there and drunk himself into a stupor.

When he had finally gotten to the hospital Tony was already being examined. The cut on his head had stopped bleeding – it’d been small enough not to need stitches. The doctors had sedated him to x-ray his arm and do a scan of his brain, confirming a break but nothing wrong with his head. The boy had also gained a lot of bruises from the fall but, all in all, he’d been lucky. He would need a cast for a few weeks but then he’d be good as new, which had been a huge relief. Even though they’d all told Tony a million times not to run on the stairs he never really listened.

Howard had felt shaky and exhausted throughout the whole ordeal. The thought that Tony could have died wouldn’t leave his mind and it made him edgy and irritable, snapping at everyone. He kept seeing it, Tony’s broken body by the stairs, head twisted unnaturally (he’d seen men with broken necks, he knew what it looked like). The whole thing had been a nightmare and, like earlier today, he’d done fuck all for his son. _Howard Stark, ladies and gentlemen, worst father ever_ , he thought self-deprecatingly.

Eventually a man came into the room to speak with them. He was in his forties, with brown hair and a calm demeanor. “Hi, I’m Doctor Bruce Banner. I’m going to take some samples from you to run some tests. Is that all right?”

So that was the green guy in the magazine? The Hulk? He looked pretty ordinary. Was he some kind of shape-shifter? Jesus, what the hell was going on in the world?

“That’s fine,” Maria said as the man set up his stuff. “Is Tony all right?”

Dr Banner looked up at her. “He’s okay.”

Howard snorted at that and Banner turned to him, frowning. “He’s not fine. He was a fucking mess back there.” He sounded angry, which wasn’t his intention. Even though he was angry: at himself, at the situation, at the whole fucking world. However, now was not the time.

“Howard, calm down.” Maria looked at Banner. “Please excuse my husband. We’re worried about our son. Please, how is he? Is someone with him? He shouldn’t be alone.” Unlike him, Maria sounded genuinely concerned and not an ass.

“He’s got someone with him, yes, and he’s being taken care of, don’t worry.”

Once he’d drawn blood and swabbed the inside of their cheeks, Banner settled into the chair. “Can you tell me what happened? How you got here?”

They told him everything. From waking up unable to remember where they’d been, to getting to the mansion, to all they learned from the papers, magazine and the boys’ conversation in the diner. He told Banner what he’d done with the security system, hoping to catch Tony’s attention. “Time travel is the only explanation I can think of, even if it sounds crazy,” he finished, “though how I have no idea.”

“And you have no recollection of what happened before you woke up in the alley?”

Howard shook his head.

“We were in the car, going somewhere, but I don’t remember where,” Maria told him.

“And when was that? The date, I mean.”

“December 16, 1987.”

Banner’s eyes widened at that but he said nothing. He glanced at the camera in the corner briefly, then stood up. “All right. Well, there’s nothing else we can do for now. You’ll have to stay here until we figure things out. Someone will come by with food for you in a while. If you need anything, just ask. There will be someone listening.”

Left alone again, Howard began pacing, feeling increasingly agitated. This whole thing was a complete fucking mess and they were helpless, which was a feeling Howard hated. He couldn’t get the image of Tony’s white face out of his head, the terror in his eyes. It was like that day Tony had broken his arm. His boy was hurt and Howard had failed him. Again.

He was so wrapped up in his own anger and recriminations that it took a while for the sound to penetrate. Sobs. He turned. Maria was crying, hands covering her face, back against the head of the bed. Shit.

God, he hated this. What the hell was he supposed to do?

After a few seconds of paralyzing frustration, Howard moved to sit by his wife. He made as if to put an arm around her but hesitated. Did she want that? Fuck.

“Maria,” he said as gently as he could. When she gave no response he spoke louder. “Maria. Maria, what’s wrong?” Christ, what a stupid question. Every fucking thing was wrong. They were far from home, lost and confused, their son grown up and messed up. Shit.

She still didn’t answer, but turned in his direction and held on to his shirt, continuing to cry into his shoulder. Howard sat there, feeling utterly inadequate, holding on to her hand.

Maria had never been the crying type, which Howard appreciated. She had always been strong and capable, calling him on his shit when it was necessary (mostly about Tony). She had never been a trophy wife, no matter what the papers had said. It hadn’t been grand romance, perhaps (he’d never believed in it, to be honest), but they had always respected each other and, for the most part, they got along well enough. Maria knew when to leave him alone, and she had her own life apart from him. She ran the Foundation not because she was his wife, but because she was good at it and enjoyed it. She was very organized and good with people, understood politics and the way society worked and did a great job presenting a more human side of the company. They didn’t often work together but they made a good team in social events. Even when she was pissed at him, her public persona was always impeccable. And she was a good mother, making up for Howard’s many failures. Tony adored her. Sometimes (many times actually) Howard envied (resented) her for her ease with Tony, her ability to always know the right thing to do or say to him while Howard floundered and fucked up, time and time again. Maria didn’t really need him, and that had always been something Howard liked. He had enough people depending on him (the company, SHIELD, the fucking government who wouldn’t leave him alone), it was a relief to have someone who didn’t, someone who would do just fine without him and wasn’t, therefore, demanding things from him all the time. It wasn’t much of a marriage, perhaps, but Howard thought it worked for them (for him, at least; he certainly hoped it did for her as well). Even though they had drifted apart some in the last few years, he still felt he could count on her.

“It’s going to be okay,” he told her, though he had no way of knowing that.

It took a few minutes for her to finally stop crying. Howard offered her a handkerchief, which she accepted. There was a door in the back of the room in the only wall not made of glass. While Maria sorted herself, Howard opened it to find a small bathroom. He turned on the light and looked at his reflection. The white hair still bothered him as it was a sign of age, but he thought he’d look even worse if he tried to dye it, so he’d left it like that. There were dark circles under his eyes and fatigue etched into his face. It was vain, certainly, but Howard missed the days when he’d been young and attractive, when he didn’t feel like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. Maybe it was all in his head and he wasn’t actually that important – the world had obviously gone on after his death. It was almost a relief being here, if he considered it through that angle. The company wasn’t his concern anymore, and it was doing well regardless; SHIELD was gone apparently (infiltrated by Hydra, what the fuck?); and his son was a grown man, a hero, who didn’t need him anymore. He was no longer needed, or even useful, probably. Years ago that thought might have sent him into a panic (if he had no use then what the fuck was he supposed to do?), yet now… now it was freeing. He was tired. Tired of everything. All the secrets, all the setbacks, all the demands pilling up, all the mistakes and the things he couldn’t fix, couldn’t change. For all his genius and his money, at the end of the day Howard was just a man, a sad, bitter old man. Maudling too, fuck it all.

Maria came into the bathroom and he went back to sit on the bed, waiting. Waiting for what? What would happen to them? What would Tony do?

The door opened and another man came in, a black guy wearing some sort of contraption on his legs with little blue dots, carrying a tray with food and drinks.

“Hello,” Maria said, emerging from the bathroom looking back to rights.

“Hi. I’m James Rhodes.”

“Tony’s friend. I remember you, though you look older now of course.” Maria smiled and took the tray from his hands, settling it on the bed. “It’s nice to see you again.”

“Yeah…” Rhodes looked from one to the other assessingly. “Are you all right?” It was addressed to Maria, not surprisingly. They were really being watched.

“I’m fine, thank you. It’s just… a little overwhelming, I guess. It’s all very confusing, how we got to be here.”

“Yeah, I suppose so.”

Howard was trying to remember what he knew of Rhodes, beyond the fact that he was a friend of Tony’s from MIT. Nothing came to mind.

“I’m sorry for locking you guys in here, but we need to be sure you are who you say you are. I guess we’ve all gotten a little paranoid in the last few years.”

“We don’t mind,” Maria told him. “We knew it would be hard to believe it at first. If I hadn’t seen so many things that can’t be explained any other way, I’d be skeptical too. To be honest, I still find it hard to believe. It doesn’t really seem possible, does it? Time travel? It’s insane. And yet, here we are.”

“Yeah.” It was hard to tell what Rhodes was thinking, he gave nothing away. “The tests should be done soon, so we’ll have more information to figure things out. Are you sure you don’t remember anything that happened before you got here?”

They both shook their heads. “All I know is that we were going somewhere, but I can’t remember where,” Howard said.

“Do you remember what happened the day before?”

Howard tried to remember. “Tony was home for the holidays.”

“He said he was going to be working on his thesis project,” Maria added. “Something about a robot? He was excited about it. We… were going on vacation? Yes, we were going on vacation, away for a few days. We intended to be home for Christmas.”

“Where were you going?”

“LA. We have a house there,” Howard answered. “We were driving to the hangar, where we keep the Stark jet.” He turned to Maria. “Is that right?”

She thought about it. “Yes, that’s right. We were going to take the jet. You called ahead to get the house ready for us. It was going to be our first vacation in years. It took me forever to convince Howard to go.”

“We said good bye to Tony, told him not to burn down the house,” Howard continued, events finally coming back to him.

“You argued again.” She looked at Rhodes. “They were always arguing.”

“What did you argue about?”

Howard sighed. “Something stupid, I don’t remember. It’s always something stupid.”

“What?” Rhodes pressed.

What had it been that time? He’d said something that Tony had taken the wrong way, that was usually how it went. Whatever he said it was always the wrong thing. “I said something about his project, the robot thing. I… I asked what it was supposed to do and he got upset. Next thing I know it’s turned into an argument.” And he had been left wondering for the millionth time why he could never do the right thing with Tony, why every fucking conversation ended in a fight.

“After you got in the car, did you stop anywhere?”

“No, I don’t think so. I don’t remember. Maria?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Did you get to the hangar? Did you board the plane?”

“No.” He was quite sure of that. Why was he sure?

Maria agreed. “No, we didn’t get to the plane. We came here, somehow. Between the house and the hangar we ended up here.”

Rhodes nodded. “What time was that? When you left the house?”

“It was late afternoon, I think. Wasn’t it?”

Maria confirmed it. “Yes, the sun was going down. We were supposed to leave earlier, but there were some last minute things to take care of.”

Howard glanced at the camera in the corner. Was Tony watching them? Confirming every piece of information they gave? Did he even remember that day, so long ago for him?

“Right. Well, I need to go. Do you need anything else?”

“Would you please tell Tony we’re worried about him? That we’d like to see him?”

“Sure. Let us know if there’s anything, ok? And please eat something.”

After he was gone, Howard opened the food packages. Italian. Tony had probably chosen it.

They ate without much appetite, just something to pass the time. How long would it take for the tests results to come back? The fingerprint analysis Vision had done (heaven knew how) had only taken seconds. Blood tests would be more complicated, requiring more sophisticated equipment, not to mention people to do them. Still, they had a whole medical wing out there, so the equipment was already here. There would be no technicians working at this hour, but maybe Dr Banner would do it himself to speed things up. If the others thought they were spies or something, they’d want to get the tests done as soon as possible, right?

A horrible thought crossed his mind. What if even with the test results Tony still didn’t believe them? It was, admittedly, a far-fetched story, and they had zero proof of it, beyond the fact that they were here, and themselves. Time travel was ludicrous but what else was there to explain it?

Maria had cleared out the bed, putting the tray on the floor by one of the glass walls. She was now lying on the bed curled up in a ball clutching the pillow.

There was only one bed in the room, Howard finally noticed, and it was certainly not big enough for the two of them. Well, the chair would have to do then. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t slept in worse, like slumped over the table on the workshop or his office, or even in shitty barrack beds back during the war (though he had been young and athletic then, not 70 fucking years old).

He kept looking into the camera, as if he could see Tony there, watching them. He felt tired again – he was always tired these days – and god he wanted a drink. All they got with dinner was soda and apple juice. What he wouldn’t do for a glass of scotch right now…

*****

Maria shook him awake again the next morning. At least he thought it was morning, there were no windows here. “What time is it?” he asked, rubbing sleep from his eyes. He still felt tired, damn old age.

“I don’t know.”

“It is 7:42 am.” Howard and Maria whirled around and saw no one.

“Who’s that?” It sounded like the woman from the suit.

“I am Friday.”

Friday? What the hell kind of name was that? Howard turned toward the camera. “Where are you?” It was hard to pinpoint where the sound was coming from.

“Doctor Banner is on his way to speak with you,” she said, ignoring his question. “He will arrive shortly.”

Howard then hurried into the bathroom for a piss and to get himself presentable. Would Tony come too, he wondered. Did they have the test results?

Banner looked tired, was the first thing Howard noticed. He’d probably spent the night running tests. He’d also come alone.

“Well?” Howard asked impatiently.

With a sigh, Banner shook his head. “It makes no sense, but according to all the tests we could think of, you are who you say you are. How you could have possibly gotten here though…” He was as lost about it as they were.

“Can we see Tony now?” Maria asked.

“I…” Banner hesitated. “Not just yet, I’m afraid. He’s still… processing.”

Maria nodded. She wasn’t happy about it but they certainly didn’t want a repeat of yesterday.

“How long have we been dead?” Howard asked.

Banner didn’t answer right away, running a hand through his disheveled hair. “A while,” he finally said evasively. After another lengthy uncomfortable pause he spoke again. “Accommodations have been prepared for you. Come with me please.”

The door to their room opened and they followed Banner back to the medical room and into the elevator. Again, it moved on its own (how did that work?). They got off on another floor, this one a fully furnished apartment. There was an open kitchen area to the right and a spacious living room in front of them with huge windows looking out into the city. They were obviously very high up. To the left of the windows there was a corridor, probably leading into a bedroom and bathroom.

“I’m going to have to ask you to remain here for the time being.” Banner said. “Clothes and personal items have been ordered and will be delivered soon. If you think of anything we missed you can tell Friday and she’ll arrange for it.”

“Who is Friday?” Howard asked, seizing the opportunity.

“She runs the Tower systems and monitors all activity inside. It’s a security measure and not negotiable.”

Howard said nothing. He could understand the need for security and constant monitoring. The information they’d gotten so far suggested that the Avengers had enemies, so it wasn’t unexpected that they’d be paranoid. He’s certainly tried to instill some caution in Tony – people in their position could not afford to be careless. Still, it was a little uncomfortable to think they’d be watched all the time. On the other hand, it might help convince Tony they were telling the truth if the tests hadn’t been enough.

“The kitchen has been stocked. You can also order food if you prefer, just ask Friday.”

“It’s all very nice, thank you,” Maria told him with a smile, ever polite.

“Right. We’re still trying to figure out how this all happened, so if you remember anything else please let us know.” They nodded. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to go.”

“Of course, dear. You should get some rest, you look tired.”

Howard could help rolling his eyes at his wife’s mothering. Banner smiled and left.

“Let’s get some breakfast,” Maria said, going into the kitchen to poke around. Howard searched through the cabinet for a drink but there was nothing. Fuck.

Maria made toast while Howard figured out the coffee machine (it made really good coffee). They ate in silence, again having nothing to do but wait and worry. Howard hated inactivity; he had always been the kind of person to _do_ things (admittedly sometimes stupid things). Doing nothing made him edgy, especially now with all these thoughts in his head.

At least, he thought, trying for a silver lining, they knew Tony had done all right with his life despite Howard’s shitty parenting. He was successful and well liked, admired even, according to the magazine article. It was, in truth, more than Howard himself had managed. It was good to know he’d been right about Tony, that he’d surpass Howard. Regardless of his mistakes, his son had turned out all right.

Time crawled by as their explored their new apartment and sorted out the stuff that arrived all by itself in the elevator. Howard flicked through the channels on the television for a while, marveling at the perfection of the images, but couldn’t settle on anything to watch. Everything was unfamiliar and confusing. While a part of him was dying to discover more about the technology of the future, another part was scared about being thrust into the unknown without any safety net. He had never felt so lost in his life.

It was near lunch time when Tony finally came to see them, looking haggard and still much too pale.


	4. Conversation

Tony had barely slept. That in itself was nothing new, of course, but the reason for it this time was. Those people claiming to be his parents were in his Tower, insisting on their crazy story and Tony didn’t know what to think anymore.

He’s checked the mansion’s security system top to bottom as soon as he’d gotten back to the Tower. Maybe-Howard had managed to open the door multiple times without triggering the alarms, and had rewritten part of the code apparently as bait for Tony. Knowing that, Tony was able to identify the bits of nonsensical code as an early draft of his father’s missile guidance system, which Howard had shown him a few months before his death. It had certainly looked like his father’s work. Was it possible that someone else could know about it?

Once Vision returned Tony had practically assaulted him with questions, still strung out from the earlier panic attack. By then Bruce and Rhodey had heard about the whole thing and had tried to get him to calm down, not very successfully. Bruce had gone to get samples and the rest of them had watched the conversation through the security cameras. Those people looked like his parents, sounded like them too, but… it was hard to believe. It had been awful to see his mom crying and his dad’s lost look on the face of it. They looked and acted so real…

When Howard had told Bruce the date they had “left” Tony had almost had another panic attack remembering that fucking video and everything that had followed. How could they have time traveled on the day they died? Tony knew they’d died because he’d fucking seen it and fucking Barnes had confirmed killing them. How was it possible?

While Bruce ran his analysis Rhodey had gone to talk to them and Vision stayed with Tony. It was obvious that nobody wanted to leave him alone, for which Tony was grateful. Tony thought he might lose what was left of his mind if he had to be alone with his thoughts and memories just then.

Rhodey had gotten more information out of them and everything checked out. He had indeed argued with his father that day (as usual), and all the little details they provided were true. How could anyone but them know all that? Either they were the best and most prepared spies in the world or… they were the real thing, however crazy it seemed.

The tests were completed in record time. The DNA and blood were a match for Howard and Maria Stark, as well as all the scans Friday took of them. As unbelievable as it seemed, all the evidence pointed to the impossible being true.

Tony had spent most of the night going through everything they knew in spite of the others’ protests (Rhodey and Bruce had eventually gone to bed but Vision didn’t really need to sleep so he’d stayed), trying to make sense of it. Friday had eventually located Howard and Maria on CCTV near the Tower late on Sunday, the location close to where she’d detected the energy spike after the attack. Could that energy have been from the… fuck it… time travel? It took a while for Friday to clean up and enhance the images, but it was clearly them stumbling into the street. They had been wearing the clothes that had on the day they died, the day they’d gotten into that car and been intercepted by the Winter Soldier. Strangely, in the CCTV footage, there appeared to be blood on them as well as their clothes (Tony remembered Howard’s bloodied face as the metal hand smashed into him, the blood seeping from his mom’s head as a human hand squeezed her neck), but Friday’s scans had revealed no injuries on them. One more mystery.

All in all, everything pointed in one direction. Tony had spent most of the night freaking out about it, alternating between being glad his parents were here and terrified of what it meant. He wanted to go to them, wanted to hug his mom and never let go again. He wanted to hug his dad and tell him he was sorry for all the shitty things he’d said that last day – all the things he’d spent the last 30 years regretting. He wanted to apologize for blaming his father for the accident all these years, for not being a better son to them both. He wanted them to hug him back and tell him he did well, that they were proud.

He could do all these things now, he had realized, all he had to do was go there. Instead, he had watched them sleep, too scared to face them (especially after his embarrassing display back at the mansion – _god, what they must think_ …). What if it wasn’t real? What if this was just a cruel joke? He didn’t think he could deal with that, not after everything, not after all the betrayals he’s already lived through in the last few years.

In the morning, Tony watched his parents settle into one of the apartments he’d originally intended for the Avengers and which had been gathering dust for a while. He’d put Friday in charge of getting things ready because he didn’t want to start obsessing about every little thing as he usually did. Vision had fixed him breakfast and Bruce and Rhodey had shown up for moral support while he gathered the courage to go speak to them (it took a while). They offered to come with him, but Tony refused. As much as he might want his friends around him, this was too personal and Tony wouldn’t be comfortable with an audience. Hell, he wasn’t going to be comfortable anyway, might as well save himself further humiliation.

With feet that seemed to weight a ton and an even heavier heart, Tony got into the elevator and let Friday take him to the correct floor. _Time to face the music, Tony_ , he told himself, _you can do this_. Still, it was several minutes before he managed to get out of the safety of the elevator and into the apartment.

*****

“So, time travel,” Tony said with as much casualness as he could as he strolled in, faking confidence and bravado for all he was worth (he was good at that). “That’s new.”

His parents were sitting on the couch and immediately got up as they heard him.

“Tony.” His mom walked over and hugged him, and Tony crumbled. All his psyching up, all his strength and carefully constructed distance went completely out the window the moment he felt her arms around him.

“Mom.”                                           

He clung to her as if she was the only thing in the world. God, he’d missed her. He’d missed her so fucking much.

“It’s all right, darling, it’s all right.”

There was no stopping the tears, or the sobs that tore through him. He felt like he was 5 years old again, holding his mommy after a nightmare. The nightmare where she’d died and left him all alone with so much responsibility and uncertainty. With so much fear and helpless anger at the unfairness of it.

“Mom, I missed you,” he told her. He had to tell her. Had to tell her everything he had never told her, how much he loved her, how important she had always been to him, how he’d wished he’d done better, been better.

“It’s okay, sweetheart, I know. And you did great, baby, you did great. I’m so proud of you, honey.”

Tony didn’t even know what he was saying anymore, babbling on about whatever came to his mind – he probably wasn’t making any sense – as he continued to hold on to her with all he had. He didn’t care anymore that he was making a spectacle of himself crying like a baby; right now, she was all he cared about.

Eventually he calmed down enough to realize they were sitting on the couch, him practically in his mom’s lap, her nice blouse damp with tears, her hands carting through his hair the way she used to do when he was a child. So much for keeping his cool.

If it had just been her, he wouldn’t have minded so much, but his father was right there, though Tony couldn’t see him from his position. _He’s probably disgusted with me_ , he thought, _carrying on like this. I’m still a disappointment_. He felt the same bitterness he always did, realizing nothing he ever did was good enough. _At least mom’s proud_. That was something, even if it wasn’t what he really wanted.

His mom offered him a handkerchief and Tony cleaned himself up as best as he could. He would not apologize for his emotional display, he didn’t care how disappointed his father was. He was human, he had a right to feel emotion and express it (that was one of the lessons his therapist had managed to drive into his head). It was not a crime to cry, even if he hated it.

“God, look at you,” his mom said. “You’re all grown up.” There were tears tracks on her face as well, her make-up a little smudged. Her smile was sad as she cupped his face and kissed his forehead. “God, we missed so much…”

All Tony’s usual eloquence had deserted him. He had no idea what to say anymore except for more incoherent babble. Right now, staring at his mom’s perfectly healthy face, no trace of blood or bruises anywhere, Tony felt a weight he hadn’t known he was carrying lift from his shoulders. His last real image of her would no longer be one of death, but of love. He didn’t believe in god, but right now, he thanked every deity he had ever heard of for this chance. And pleaded fervently that it wouldn’t be taken from him. That his parents wouldn’t be taken from him again.

Taking a deep breath, Tony smiled at his mom, kissing her on the cheek before turning to his father, who was standing a little farther away from them. What he found, however, was not what he was expecting. He’d thought his dad would be disgusted with him, or at the most indifferent. But… the look on his face was one Tony had never seen before. His eyes shone with unshed tears and he seemed lost. Was that… regret?

“Dad?” His voice was slightly wobbly.

“Son.”

For a while they just stared at each other, silent for once.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Howard,” his mom said, exasperated. “Come hug your son.”

And, to Tony’s complete surprise, he did.

Howard, who had always been distant and cold, sat down on the couch next to him and drew him into a hug. “I’m sorry, son.”

Tony could hardly believe it. Not just a hug, but an apology? What the hell was he even apologizing for? Was this a joke? Was this the part when he woke up and found out none of this was real? _Oh god, please don’t_.

He stood up abruptly, pushing not-Howard away. It couldn’t be. His dad didn’t care, didn’t love him, had never loved him. What the hell kind of sick joke was this? His chest started to feel tight, and it was getting harder to draw breath. _Oh, shit, not again_.

“What the hell, Tony! Of course I care about you! You’re my son.”

Tony stopped. Had he said that aloud? _Oh, wonderful_.

“Honey, of course your father loves you.” His mother got up and took his hand, leading him back to the couch.

“No, he doesn’t,” Tony said, staring from one to the other in confusion. At least he wasn’t panicking anymore.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Howard murmured. Then he started pacing like a caged animal, opening his mouth as if to say something several times before changing his mind. Tony watched him, not sure what to think anymore.

“Tony.” Maria waited until she had his attention to continue. “I know you and your father have had some problems,” which was kind of a huge understatement “but we both love you very much and we are very proud of you.”

Howard nodded at that, looking uncomfortable. “Okay, I’ve fucked up worse than I thought, but… Jesus, Tony, you’re my son.”

“Your greatest creation,” Tony said, remembering the video from the Expo, the one that had given him the clue to save his life. He hadn’t quite known how to take that at the time. Was it meant as a compliment or a weird form of possession?

His father frowned at that and nodded again. “Yes.”

“That’s what you said in a video. From when you recording the intro to the Stark Expo in 74.”

After a few seconds, Howard seemed to remember what he was talking about. “Yeah, that’s right. You got that then?”

“Couple of years ago.” He hesitated, then continued. “I figured out the element for the Arc Reactor. I made it and it worked pretty well.”

Howard actually smiled. “I knew you would.”

Again Tony was floored. Since when did his father have such faith in him? Or any faith at all, for that matter? It seemed surreal.

“Tony… I know I wasn’t a good father, but I do care.”

“Then why did you ship me off to boarding school the first chance you got?” He hadn’t meant to raise his voice. He didn’t want to fight anymore.

Howard stared. “What? We sent you to boarding school to give you an education. We weren’t trying to get rid of you, for fuck’s sake.”

They weren’t? “I could have gotten an education somewhere else. It was New York, there were dozens of good schools I could have gone to without being miles from home.”

Running a hand through his hair, Howard sighed. “It wasn’t that simple.”

“Why not? Why not any of those schools? We were right here in Manhattan. Jarvis could have taken me, or one of the drivers. You wouldn’t have even needed to do anything.”

“Because it wasn’t safe!”

Tony raised an eyebrow at the unexpected outburst, but tried to keep calm. “What are you talking about?”

“You’re not a child anymore, Tony, surely you can understand.” When Tony said nothing, he went on. “Things were… complicated. Politically. A lot of people were unhappy with the country getting into wars, spending money on weapons instead of… other things. I was not exactly well liked in many circles.” He took a deep breath. “There were threats. Not just against me, but against my family. You. A regular school would have been a security risk. Too many opportunities for someone to take you, hurt you. Boarding school was much safer.”

Tony didn’t know what to think of that. It made sense, of course. Tony himself had received a lot of death threats during his years as Merchant of Death, there was no reason to think his father had been any different. But Tony hadn’t had any family for anyone to threaten, so he’d only had to worry about himself.

“Why didn’t you tell me? You made me think you were trying to get rid of me.”

“I didn’t know you thought that!” He seemed surprised and even horrified. “As for not telling you… Jesus, Tony, I may not be a good father but even I know you don’t tell a child someone might be trying to kill them. I didn’t want you to be scared all the time. Cautious yes, scared no.”

Huh. That made sense too. Why had he never thought of that possibility?

“You always thought the worst of me, didn’t you?” His father sounded weary, defeated. “You always took everything I said the wrong way, always saw criticism even when I didn’t mean it that way. I could never say the right thing to you.”

Tony could only stare, uncomprehending. Had he misunderstood everything? “But… you never showed any interest in what I did. You were never there, never had time for me.”

“I… I was busy. I had a company to run, you know, it took a lot of my time.”

“Bullshit. You could have made time if you wanted. I ran the company too, I know how much time it takes. You weren’t there because you didn’t want to be.”

“I did the best I could!” Howard shouted. “You think it was easy? That I could just snap my fingers and have everything fall into place? That’s not how the world fucking works!” He stopped, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I did the best I could. It wasn’t enough, I know that, but… I didn’t know how to do better. Damn it, Tony, I was never good with people. Machines, yes, and even business was okay, but people… I was never good with people. Either too flippant or too much of an asshole.”

Again, Tony felt lost. His father had just described Tony himself. Tony knew all about being terrible with people, about not being seen, about being misunderstood (Natasha’s ego comment still stung). It had never really occurred to him, but his father had very few friends. Business associates, sure, a lot of those, but actual friends? There was Jarvis, Peggy Carter, some of the commandos, his mom maybe and… well, he couldn’t really count Obie, could he? Just like Tony, alone and lonely, and… bitter about it, maybe. Tony had always been good at alienating people – hell even the fucking Avengers, who were supposed to be his friends and teammates, had been pretty quick to think the worst of him (blaming him for Ultron, for the Accords, for every fucking thing that went wrong) and ditch him for fucking Rogers. Had his father felt the same way? Saying the wrong thing, being misinterpreted, dismissed? Shit.

“And for the record,” Howard said, “I was interested in what you were doing. Maria and Jarvis always told me about it.”

“I thought… you seemed to avoid me…” He felt like a kid again, uncertain and lost.

Howard grimaced. “Sometimes I did.” Tony flinched. “But,” his father continued “it wasn’t because I didn’t want to be around you, it’s just… sometimes I just didn’t want a fight. I was a coward. I knew I’d fuck it up and thought it would be easier to… not have the opportunity.”

Oh, yeah, avoiding the problem. Tony was very familiar with that. How many times had he avoided Pepper and Rhodey when he knew they were upset with him? When he knew it would only lead to more hurt, when he had nothing to say in his own defense and no hope of making things better?

Jesus. All these years he’d spent not wanting to be like his father and… shit, he was exactly like his father.

For a while no one said anything. Tony was still reeling from all these revelations. Could he really have misunderstood everything? Yeah, it didn’t make Howard a good father, but… he wasn’t the asshole Tony had always believed him to be, maybe. Hadn’t Fury said that? When he had come to deliver those boxes he had talked about Howard, a Howard that sounded nothing like the man he had known. And Fury had said maybe he’d known his father better than him. Looking at the man now, Tony thought he might have been right. And there was fucking Rogers, who sometimes talked about Howard fondly (and it hurt to think the bastard had kept the truth from him. Hell, he had barely flinched watching a man he had called a friend being murdered right in front of his eyes. _No, don’t think about it_.) It had always sounded like he was talking about a completely different person. Even his mom and Jarvis had always tried to defend his father, to make excuses for his failures, to convince him that Howard cared. He hadn’t believed them, he’d thought they were just saying it to make him feel better. Maybe they’d known better than him, understood better, knew stuff he didn’t.

Christ, a whole lifetime being at odds with the man, with his memory and legacy and… fuck, all they had needed to do was fucking _talk_ to each other. Had Tony made things harder by being a little brat with a chip on his shoulder? Had he twisted his father’s every action into something terrible, into a slight, when it was just… poor communication? _Shit, shit, shit_.

“I shut down weapons production,” he eventually said. Ever since he’d made that decision he had wondered what his father would have thought, if he would have been disappointed. He had thought so, but now… Now he had the chance to hear his actual response, not the one Tony imagined.

Howard looked at him. “Okay.”

Just that. Okay. No recriminations, no anger, just… okay.

“We do all sorts of tech now, but no weapons.” Well, almost no weapons. There were the Iron Man and War Machine suits, and a few things he’d done for the Avengers (the former Avengers) that he regretted now. Nothing for the military though, nothing that could be misused (or so he’d thought, _fuck you Rogers_ ). “Computers, tablets, phones, medical technology, a whole bunch of things.”

“I saw the new portable phones. They play video too? Like a computer?”

“They’re called cell phones. And yes, they work like a computer.”

“Amazing.”

“I… I can get you one,” he offered somewhat timidly. “You’ll need it anyway, if you’re going to be here. Everyone has a phone these days.”

“It looked very intriguing.”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw his mother smiling at them. He smiled back at her. “So… you’re okay with my taking the company in a whole different direction?” he asked, needing an actual confirmation.

“From what we read in the magazine, it’s doing very well this way. Frankly, I’m glad. I tried to get out of the weapon business, but… no one was happy with that. Weapons sell.” He shrugged, though he looked bitter about it.

It was silly, perhaps, but Tony couldn’t help but feel relieved at that answer. It wouldn’t have changed his mind, of course, he knew he’d done the right thing, but it was good to hear it. There was still a part of him (a huge part) that wanted his father’s approval.

“How about we all have lunch together?” his mom suggested. “It’s been a while since we all sat down together to talk.” _Yeah, about 30 years_.

Howard agreed. “That’s a good idea.”

“Sure. What do you guys want? Italian? Or there’s this great French place a couple blocks over. Or Chinese.”

“Does the French place have _Bœuf bourguignon_? I haven’t had it in a while, not since the last time we went to Paris.”

Tony smiled at his mom. “Fri, order up. And tell them there’s a big tip if they make it quick.”

“Who is this Friday?” Howard asked after they had all made their requests.

Was it a good idea to tell them too much about the future, Tony wondered. Well, it wasn’t like they had any idea how to get them back. And, even if they did, Tony wouldn’t send them to their deaths. So he figured it would be okay. Also, he wanted to brag a bit (a lot). He wanted to show his father (and his mom too) all the things he’d created.

“Friday is an artificial intelligence.”

Howard looked at him in disbelief. “Seriously? That’s… that’s real now.”

“Well, sort of. It’s not a thing that is everywhere. There are only a few true AIs in the world, and they’re all mine.” God, he missed Jarvis. “Friday is still young, though, not as sophisticated as she’ll be eventually.”

“I am learning quickly, Boss,” she interjected.

Tony smiled. “Yeah, you’re doing great, Fri.”

“She sounds like a real person,” Maria said.

“She is a person, sort of, just not a flesh and bone one.”

“What about that Vision… person?”

“Ah… that’s… a really long story. Short version is he’s part AI, part android, part… alien. It’s… complicated.”

“Well, he seemed very polite.”

That made Tony laugh. Only his mom would meet an impossible being and remark on his politeness.

“What I want to know about, though,” Howard said, getting Tony’s attention “is that suit of yours. It looks incredible. How does it work? How is it powered? How high up can you fly in it? How fast can you go?”

His father looked like a kid on Christmas morning and Tony laughed again, feeling truly relaxed since this whole mess began. This was what he had always wanted, to talk to his dad about their work, their creations.

So he told him everything (except the part about why he’d built the suit in the first place – better leave that part for later, he thought). He told him about miniaturizing the Arc Reactor to use it as a power source, about the repulsors in the gloves and boots for propulsion, about his first flight (minus the part where he almost plummeted to his death), his record for speed and altitude, all the different suits he’d built, first the portable suitcase and then the bracelets and sensors that allowed him to call the suit to him whenever he needed.

Lunch came and they ate as they talked (at his mom’s urging since he and dad were too busy speaking to actually eat). Howard asked lots of questions and seemed truly impressed by everything he heard. Some of the explanations went over his head, technology that hadn’t existed in his time, and yet he stayed interested, fidgeting in his seat as if he wanted to go see for himself, touch it all and take it apart to figure it out.

It was the best conversation he had ever had with his father.

 


	5. Remembrance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, thanks everyone for the kind response to this fic. I'm really happy that people are enjoying it.
> 
> I know you guys want Howard and Maria to learn some important things, so... they learn some important things in this chapter. I hope you like it.

They ended up spending several hours together, talking ( _talking_ , not fighting, it was a fucking miracle). The idea that Tony had spent all these years thinking Howard didn’t love him had been a punch in the gut and that failure still sat heavily in Howard’s stomach, but it couldn’t be too late. He had been given a second chance and Howard was determined not to ruin it.

It was certainly easier to talk to adult Tony (and still like looking into a mirror). Maria, for her part, had spent the day beaming at them both like they were clever animals performing tricks in the circus. He might have been offended if she hadn’t spent years trying to get him and Tony to be civil without success.

Tony had told them a bit about the Avengers, mainly who they were (it really was Pym’s girl and the old bastard was still alive and kicking) and some of the things they’d done (the alien invasion had really happened, Jesus Christ). There was a lot he didn’t say, of course, but Howard didn’t press. It was a lot to take in anyway, 30 years of changes to the world, might as well work up to it. Plus, he had the feeling some of it was painful and he last thing he wanted was to spoil the good mood they had managed to sustain these past hours.

It was late afternoon when Friday announced the Avengers were needed.

“Boss, the Chief of Police of New York is on the line requesting the Avengers’ assistance with a situation in Brooklyn.”

Tony sighed, standing up with an apologetic look. “Sorry guys, duty calls. Fri, let the others know and put the call through.” He took one of those new phones from his pocket and started talking into it, asking what was going on. Before he got to the elevator, though, he came back to give each of them a hug. In a quiet voice, keeping the phone away, he said “I love you guys.” Then he was gone, leaving Howard and Maria to worry about whatever he was about to get into.

Maria gave him a ‘do something’ look so Howard tried to at least get some information. “Friday, what’s going on?” He was still astonished that Tony had actually managed to build an artificial intelligence.

After a small pause she answered. “There appears to be a person dressed up in a rhinoceros armored costume robbing a bank. He also seems to be keeping hostages.”

Howard blinked. _What the hell_? The future had some really strange things. “Can we see it?”

Friday didn’t answer but the TV flickered on to the news. A female reporter was standing on the street near the bank, several police cars behind her.

“… confirmed there are still four bank employees inside. The police has also just confirmed that the Avengers have been called in.” As she spoke, the camera pointed up and zoomed in, showing the Iron Man suit flying in. “And there is Mr Stark,” the reporter said, rather unnecessarily. The camera stayed on Tony as he touched down and began talking to the police officers securing the perimeter. He then blasted what was left of the bank’s glass doors (probably destroyed by the robber) and went inside.

While the reporter continued to give what little information she had, Vision and Rhodes (War Machine, he recalled) showed up. Vision went in after Tony while Rhodes began trying to get people to back away from the scene. There seemed to be a whole crowd there, most with their phones out. Were they taking pictures? Filming? Just how much could those things do?

A few minutes later the four hostages ran out of the bank. They were intercepted by the police, who led them away.

“The hostages have been released, though there is still no information on the criminal and whether he’s been apprehended.”

Just as she finished speaking a wall of the bank blew outwards, making people, including her, run for cover. The camera shook for several seconds before finally focusing again on the criminal who emerged from the whole in the wall.

The suit he wore was enormous, probably close to eight feet tall, and it did resemble a rhino with its gray color and the huge horn on its head. It looked heavy and clunky, not at all elegant and sophisticated like Tony’s suit. Still, it was intimidating. Maria clutched his arm when she saw the guy, eyes glued to the television.

A few of the police officers opened fire but the bullets simply bounced off the Rhino’s armor, ricocheting back into the crowd, who were still dispersing, Rhodes covering several people as they tried to get away. The Rhino picked up one of the police cars and threw it in the direction of the camera. Howard flinched, closing his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again he saw that the car was stuck in some kind of giant web, suspended between two street poles. Tony and Vision had come out of the bank and had pushed the criminal back against the wall. Vision ran at him for a physical fight. It was odd, with him being so much smaller, but he seemed to be holding his own. When the Rhino took a swing his hand simply passed thorough. Tony shot some kind of energy beam at the man and sparks started to come out of his suit. The guy screamed in frustration and tried to advance on Tony. He barely took a step before a new string of web glued his feet to the ground. Vision took opportunity of the distraction and punched him in the face (or at least what looked like the face in the suit, it was hard to tell where the guy’s actual face was inside that thing). He went down hard, feet still mostly stuck. Tony got closer and shot another beam and the guy’s suit shorted out completely, lying still.

A skinny man in a red and blue costume landed next to Tony and high-fived him. He was gesturing widely, but the camera was too far away to pick up his voice.

The reporter came back in front of the camera looking slightly rumpled. “It looks like the Avengers have detained the criminal with the help of Spider-Man.” The camera zoomed in on the red and blue guy, still talking to Tony, who had taken off the helmet and was smiling at him. Then the camera focused on the Rhino, who was being yanked out of the ruined suit by Vision. He didn’t look happy and seemed to be cursing up a storm. “Back to you in the studio, Jeff.”

The scene changed to a news studio where two journalists, a man and a woman, were seated behind a desk. “And another successful mission for the Avengers,” the man, presumably Jeff, said.

“We have no report of casualties, only a few injured bystanders, who are being taken the nearest hospital. The damage to the bank is unknown at this time,” the woman continued.

“We’ll come back with more information as it becomes available.”

The TV turned itself off and Howard and Maria fell back into the couch with relief.

“Is that what Tony does now?”

Maria had probably intended it as a rhetorical question, but Friday answered anyway. “The Avengers are called to deal with enhanced individuals the police cannot deal with on their own.”

“Enhanced?” Was that a thing now?

“Over the last nine years since Boss announced himself as Iron Man, many enhanced people have emerged. They either possess technology which grants them an advantage over ordinary people, like this Rhino person, or have acquired powers, such as the Hulk. Some of them have become heroes, defending the population against various threats. Others have turned into criminals, breaking laws and causing death and destruction.”

“How many of these… enhanced people are there?”

“It is impossible to say, as new ones surface every day. This Rhino character, for instance, had never been seen before.”

“What about that… Spider-Man, was it?” Maria asked.

“Spider-Man is indeed an enhanced individual, as well as a friend of the Boss. He is not, however, an Avenger, though he helps out on occasion. There are a few other… vigilantes who are not affiliated with the Avengers who seem to be trying to protect their community.”

“The Avengers are official, though.” Howard said. “They follow a chain of command and have official authorization to do what they do.” It came out like a question rather than a statement.

“That’s correct. When they were first formed the Avengers were under SHIELD’s command, but after that organization fell the Avengers became autonomous, answering to no one. After a while that autonomy was deemed problematic and the Avengers became affiliated with the United Nations through the Sokovia Accords.” Friday paused. “Not all the original Avengers accepted that and refused to sign. They are now fugitives from the law.”

“Fugitives? Because they didn’t want to sign?” That seemed rather extreme.

“Not because they refused to sign, but because they broke several international laws, caused death and injury to many people, as well as billions of dollars worth of property damage.” Again Friday hesitated before continuing. “Their leader believed that the safest hands were his own, and then proceeded to show the world exactly how much that wasn’t true. Without checks and balances enhanced individuals can be extremely dangerous.”

Howard nodded. If that Rhino guy had decided to go on a rampage instead of robbing a bank after hours, how many people could he have hurt or killed? Bullets obviously couldn’t stop him. It made sense to have structure and oversight. Even a well-meaning person could do damage. Howard wasn’t a soldier, but he’d been involved with the US military nearly all his life and he knew how quickly things could go to hell and how necessary it was to have a system in place to deal with rogues and mistakes. A single person, no matter how good and well-trained, couldn’t make all decisions alone. The world was made of cooperation and compromise, however much of a pain those things could be at times.

“Tony probably won’t be home for hours,” he said, breaking the silence. There was probably a lot of bureaucratic crap to get through after something like that.

The elevator opened and both Howard and Maria jumped, looking at it expectantly. It was Banner.

“Hi,” he said. “Can I come in?”

“Of course, please.” Maria walked up to him to guide him to the couch, smiling. “I’m afraid I’m still a little lost here, but would you like some coffee or something?”

“No, that’s all right, Mrs Stark, thanks.” He smiled back at her. “I just came by to tell you Tony is okay. He asked me to tell you that he’s going to be busy for a while longer, but that he’d like to invite you both for breakfast tomorrow morning.”

“Of course, we’d love that.”

“We saw the… thing… with that Rhino guy.”

“Oh?”

“It was on the news, Friday showed it to us.”

“Well, it was pretty straight forward. It’s just that there’s a lot of paperwork to get done, reports and press conferences and things like that.” Just like Howard had expected then.

“I noticed you – the Hulk – didn’t go with them.” He still didn’t know how that worked. How did this man turn into a green giant?

“Or Janet’s girl,” Maria added.

Banner blinked at them, surprised.

“We read about the Avengers in Time yesterday,” she explained. Lord, had it only been yesterday? It felt like ages ago. “And Tony told us about all of you as well.”

“Right. Well, the Hulk wasn’t necessary. I usually try not to get involved in situations in highly populated areas. Less chance of… damage.” There was obviously a lot more to it than that, but Howard didn’t say anything. “As for Hope… she was in a meeting and Tony didn’t think she’d be needed.” He paused. “Janet’s girl?”

“We knew her mother, Janet Pym.”

“And her father. Tony told me Hank is still around.”

“Yeah, he… uhm…” he trailed off, looking unsure.

“Hates my guts? Yeah, I know. He didn’t exactly make it a secret.” Banner didn’t deny it. “Though it’s been 30 years, is he still holding a grudge? Really?” Banner grimaced and Howard shook his head. Never heard of bygones, Pym.

“Ok. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“We’re fine, dear, thank you. Please tell Tony we look forward to seeing him tomorrow. Oh, and make sure he eats something when he gets back. And gets some proper rest.”

“Maria, for god’s sake, he’s not a child anymore. I’m sure he can take care of himself.”

Maria shot Howard an unimpressed look. “He may not be a child, but he is still my son. I think I have a right to worry about him.”

Banner was hiding a smile behind his hands. He cleared his throat when Howard looked at him and stood up. “Don’t worry, Mrs Stark, we’ll take care of Tony.”

Once he was gone, Maria decided to get some dinner. “I’m going to make pasta, we have all the ingredients.”

Howard was obviously dismissed, which was just as well. He’d never been much good in the kitchen. He didn’t have the patience for cooking, it was easier to either have someone else do it, or eat whatever was at hand. Maria, on the other hand, rather liked it, even if she didn’t often do it anymore. When she had first come to live at the mansion after the wedding there had been some tension between her and Ana and Jarvis over cooking. Jarvis and Ana were both great cooks, and they were used to having the run of the kitchen, so Maria trying to take over had not gone over well. Fortunately they were all sensible people who could resolve problems without shouting (as Maria was fond of reminding him), so they had worked it out.

Thinking about it made him remember that he needed to ask Tony what had happened to Jarvis (Ana had died a few years after Tony was born). And Peggy. And Obie. Shit, and a lot of people. Well, might as well get started.

“Friday, can you answer some questions for me?”

“Boss has not classified anything, so I might.”

“Ok. Can you tell me what happened to some people I knew?”

“All right.”

“Jarvis.”

There was a pause. “You mean Edwin Jarvis?”

“Yes, of course. Ana Jarvis was already dead in 87.” Who else could he have meant?

“Mr Jarvis died of a heart attack on October 24th 1989.”

Heart attack, Jesus. And just a couple of years after his time. Had he already been sick and never told Howard? Or had it come on unexpectedly? He opened his mouth to ask then thought better of it. It wouldn’t do him any good and would just make him miserable to know there might have been something he could have done to help his friend.

“Peggy Carter?”

“Ms Carter died last year of heart failure, in her sleep.” Last year? Christ, she would have been pretty old. Shit, he could almost have talked to her. “She had been suffering from dementia, however.” Well, no wonder, at that age.

“Obadiah Stane?” Howard waited, but Friday said nothing. “Friday? Is Obie still alive?”

“He is not.” But she did not elaborate. That was weird.

“Friday?”

“Apologies. That is all I can say.”

There was a story there, clearly. Howard would ask Tony about it later.

That was the only name that prompted such a response. He was given information on all other names he asked about, mostly business associates, pretty much all of them dead, as he’d expected. By the time he’d exhausted all people he was minimally interested in, Maria was calling him for dinner. And, like the old man he hated being, Howard went to bed soon after, the excitement of the day having taken a toll on him.

*****

The next morning when Friday opened the elevator to take them to Tony’s apartment, they were showered, dressed and ready.

Tony’s apartment was much bigger than theirs, with a huge balcony with a stunning view of the city below. It was probably the most expensive piece of real estate in New York, the businessman in Howard noted.

Maria greeted Tony with a hug and kiss. Howard nodded at him and, after a few tense moments, shared a rather awkward hug with his son as well. _Tony thinks you don’t care about him_ , he told himself, _the least you can do to fix your fuck-up is hug the boy_ (even if he felt uncomfortable).

Tony took them up to the balcony to appreciate the view, pointing out new buildings and innovations in the city, as well as bits that were still being reconstructed after the alien invasion. He talked a mile a minute looking nervously at Howard every once in a while, as if expecting him to… what? Disapprove? Of what? _You are an absolute idiot, Howard_.

Then he showed them around the rest of the apartment. There were a bunch of those Starkpads they’d seen in the billboard lying around, so Howard picked up one of them to have a closer look.

“Ah, those are locked, no one can use them but me,” Tony said. “Sorry.”

Howard shrugged and handed it back, but Tony took a step back, stuffing his hands in his pockets, and made no move to take it.

“You can… uhm… put it over there. Wherever. I can get you another one. Later. ‘Cause I don’t have it here right now.”

He was distressed for some reason Howard didn’t understand, and as usual Howard had no idea what to do about it. He looked helplessly at Maria, who took the hint and put an arm around Tony to lead him back to living room where the breakfast table had been set.

“The table looks lovely, honey, and the food smells delicious.” Thank god for his wife, Howard thought, as Tony visibly relaxed in his seat.

“I got a bunch of stuff because I didn’t know what you guys would want.”

“I think I’ll have this little cupcake, it looks wonderful.”

For a while all they talked about was the food, with Tony telling them about some of his favorite delis and bakeries. “They don’t all deliver, strictly speaking, but they make an exception for me.” That made Howard chuckle. Yeah, he was used to getting special treatment too. Money was very helpful for things like that.

Eventually they finished eating and just sat there, waiting. It was Maria who broke the silence. “Can I ask you a question, honey?”

“Uhm, sure, mom.”

“That woman in Time magazine, Ms Potts. Is she… I mean, are you two…?”

“Ahn… no, no, it’s not like that. I mean, we were together for a while but… it didn’t work out. We’re just friends now. It’s better that way.”

“I see. Are you seeing anyone?”

“Maria!” Really, did she have to pry like that? If Tony wanted to tell them he would.

“No, not right now. It’s… uhm, it’s been… a bit complicated. And Pepper and I only split up a little over a year ago, I haven’t had time to… well, I’ve been really busy with the Accords and everything.”

“How come she became CEO?” Howard asked, more curious about the company than Tony’s love life (which was none of his business, really).

“After… uhm… after I started being Iron Man there was… a lot to do, and I thought it would be easier to hand over the reins to her. She’d been my PA for over ten years by then, and was practically running the company already. It was mostly a formality, really. She’s way better at the business side of it anyway, she’s the most efficient person I’ve ever known. She definitely knows how to get things done, and she’s great at handling the Board.”

Howard almost asked about Obie, yet something told him it would be better to leave it for now. Tony was being very careful with how much information he gave them, and he probably had a reason for it. Patience wasn’t exactly Howard’s strongest suit, but he could manage it for now. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know about some horrible thing that had happened to his son while they weren’t there to protect him anyway (not that he had done a great job with that in the past, but he had tried).

“I’d love to meet her, if that’s possible,” Maria said.

Tony seemed surprised by that. “I… yeah, sure, I guess. Shit, I haven’t even told her about you guys being here… She’s out of the country now anyway, business stuff, but when she gets back, sure. I’ll talk to her.”

Maria smiled. “I look forward to it. I can certainly appreciate an efficient and accomplished woman.”

“Oh, you should meet Hope, then. Wait, you already know Hope, I guess.”

“We met her a few times before her mother died, but she was just a child then.”

“Shit, Hank Pym will probably blow a gasket if he finds out you’re here. He doesn’t like you much, dad.”

“Yeah, I know. I don’t like him much either, arrogant ass.”

Tony actually laughed. “Well, if that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black… But seriously, it’s probably better not to tell him. Hope will be okay with it, and she doesn’t exactly get on with her old man anyway, she’ll keep a lid on until we figure out how we’re going to handle this.”

“Do you have any theories about how we got here?”

“No, not yet. There was something I wanted to ask, though. I tracked down some footage from when you… appeared, I guess. There was blood on you guys. How did that happen?”

“I have no idea. And it was odd because there were no injuries.”

“You weren’t hurt? No pain anywhere?”

“No. Well, just the usual, I guess. Maria?”

“I felt tired but not in pain, no. I don’t know where the blood came from.”

“Huh.” Tony took another sip of coffee. “Want another bread roll, mom?”

“No, thank you, dear. Do you…” she hesitated.

“Yeah? What, mom?”

“Do you think you’ll be able to send us back?”

It was the wrong thing to say. Tony’s face closed off, his fingers tight on his coffee cup. A part of Howard was pettily glad he hadn’t been the one to fuck up this time, though most of him was just worried.

Maria realized her mistake too. “Oh, honey, I didn’t mean that I don’t want to be here, it’s just… we’ve lost so much time. We didn’t get to see you grow up.”

Tony was rather pale. “No, you can’t. You can’t go back. You… you have to stay here.” He grabbed Maria’s hand. “Please, mom, you have to stay.”

“We died not long after that, didn’t we?” Howard asked. It explained why Tony was so upset, why they hadn’t been told much about the past.

For a while Tony didn’t reply, just kept his hold on Maria’s hand. He seemed to be debating with himself whether to tell them or not. Finally, he started talking fast, looking from one to the other with a terrifying intensity.

“Yes. You died that night. You left to go on vacation for a few days and never came back. That day, that stupid fight, that was the last time I saw you and… you can’t go back. You’ll go back to your deaths and I can’t… I won’t let you. I don’t care how it happened, even if I could I wouldn’t send you back. I don’t want to lose you again. Please, mom, dad, you have to stay. You can’t go back there.” He was breathing hard by the time he finished, unshed tears in his eyes. Jesus.

Maria tugged on his hand to pull him into a hug. “It’s all right, darling, it’s all right. We’re not going to leave you.”

Howard’s mind was reeling. That night. What had happened that night? He remembered… something. It was starting to come back to him. “There was… a crash.” That was why they had blood on them, wasn’t it? A crash and… “A man. A man with a metal arm.” There had been something about that man, something familiar… dammit, he couldn’t remember.

“A man…” Maria murmured. She was remembering too, the color draining from her face. “He came… he…” She gasped, face going white.

“Mom, mom, it’s okay. Mom!” Tony squeezed her hand hard enough that she flinched and focused back on him.

For his part, Howard was freaking out too. Was that… were they really remembering how they’d died?

It had been dark on the road, no one else around. No, there was… a motorcycle rode past them. Then… he lost control of the car all of a sudden. Why? What had happened? They crashed. The car crashed into a tree. There was pain. On his head, on his shoulder and back from the impact. Blood on his head. He’d seen the bike coming back and thought… whoever it was would help them, get an ambulance. So he’d gotten out of the car, falling on the ground. He’d told the man to help Maria, she was still in the car. The man had come closer and… Howard had recognized him. Hadn’t he? There had been something familiar about him. But the man hadn’t helped. He had… Howard couldn’t remember anymore. There had been fear. Fear and pain and… and nothing. Had he died?

“Dad! Dad, come on, talk to me!”

Howard blinked, seeing his son hovering anxiously above him, fear etched into his face. Beside him, Maria didn’t look any better, shaking slightly and still clutching Tony’s hand. Fuck.

A movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. Banner had just gotten out of the elevator, medical bag in hand. Tony must have called him.

Banner gave Howard and Maria mild sedatives to help them relax (Howard hadn’t even noticed he was breathing hard and nearly hyperventilating). He and Tony led them into a bedroom so they could lie down for a while. They kept talking to him, asking him questions, but Howard couldn’t concentrate on anything. The image of the bike and the man kept replaying in his head. There was something… He felt faint, strange, like he was floating away. Was that the drugs or was he just losing his fucking mind?

When his head finally cleared enough to be aware of his surroundings again, he had no idea how much time had passed. Maria was curled up on the bed and seemed to be sleeping. He wondered if she was seeing it too, the man who killed them. Tony and Banner were talking in hushed voices by the door. Tony looked like shit ( _of course he does, Howard, he’s just witnessed his parents freaking out over their own deaths_ ).

“Tony.”

He came over, kneeling by the bed. “How are you feeling, dad?”

“Like shit.” There was no need to lie, was there? His limbs felt heavy. Damn, he hated sedatives. “How’s Maria?”

“She’s sleeping. Friday is monitoring her vitals. And yours. She’ll let us know if something happens.”

Good. That was good. How she could monitor them he didn’t know, but it was good that she did. Sensors? They would have to be pretty sophisticated sensors. Well, Tony had build that suit, he could probably do sophisticated sensors too. He should ask. Later.

“We died,” he told his son, unnecessarily. He already knew that. He’d had to bury them. At 17. Shit. And then Jarvis had died too. Who had been looking out for the kid all these years? “We died and somehow we came back to life 30 years in the future.” Was that more or less unlikely than time travel? he wondered idly.

“Yeah, it looks like it. It sounds crazy, but I’m glad. We’ll figure it out, dad. Don’t worry about it now, ok? You should get some rest too. We can talk again later.”

Howard’s eyes were already closing. “There was something… I know who it was, who killed us… I know but I don’t remember…”

“It’s okay, dad. I know who it was. I know what happened to you. We’ll talk later.”

“Okay. Okay, good.” There was something else, though. Something he’d been carrying in the car… He tried to remember but sleep overtook him.

 

 


	6. Theories

Tony left his parents sleeping under Friday’s (metaphorical) watchful eye and called everyone (Rhodey and Vision, since Bruce was already there) for an emergency meeting in his kitchen. They should probably have gone somewhere else, but Tony couldn’t bear to be away from his parents just now.

“So. Not time travel. Resurrection. How? Any ideas?” He asked, after explaining everything that had happened.

Rhodey shook his head. “Man, this is… way out there, Tones. I haven’t the faintest clue. But if I had to take a wild guess, I’d say magic. Or aliens. ‘Cause weird shit is always magic or aliens.”

“I concur,” Vision said. “There seems to be a trace of something unidentified in them. Some kind of energy signature I’ve never seen before.”

“Our scans didn’t pick up anything.”

“I believe I may be more sensitive to certain things due to this.” He pointed at the alien gem on his forehead. Yeah, that made sense.

“I think the attack the other day, with that guy’s staff, might have had something to do with this. The timing is suspicious, at least,” Bruce offered.

Tony thought it over, trying to put the pieces together. He would be the first to admit that he hadn’t really been at the top of his game the last couple of days (having one’s dead parents show up out of the blue would do that to a guy), so he hadn’t really connected their appearance with Loki 2.0’s  attack. It didn’t really seem likely, though. Why would that guy want to bring his parents back to life anyway? Plus, he had seemed rather angry when he left and not at all like he’d just completed phase one of his plan for world domination. He would have gloated. Bad guys always want to gloat.

Still, as a theory, it had some merit. There was the odd energy drain on the Arc Reactor. Could that energy have been used to resurrect his parents? It was a lot of energy. How, though? And why?

“We need to find that guy and figure out what his glowstick of destiny does. ‘Cause if he did this somehow, he might be able to undo it, and… yeah, not gonna happen.”

“Tony,” Bruce began, cautiously, “I know you want them to… not be dead, but something like this… we don’t know how stable this resurrection is.”

“Well, find out.” He sounded harsher than he’d meant, but… shit, what if they were dying or something? “When they wake up, run all the tests you can think of to make sure they’re okay. We were only interested in verifying their identity before, now we do a full check-up.”

“Okay.”

“I will assist Friday in attempting to locate our attacker,” Vision offered.

“What do you want me to do, Tones?” Rhodey asked.

“I don’t know. Help me not freak out? You’ve had some success with that in the past.”

“Not nearly as much as I would have liked…”

“I’ll go get the med bay ready.” Bruce got up. “Let me know when they’re ready. Or if you need anything else.”

“Okay, thanks. And guys, this is top secret for now, okay?”

“What about Hope? She’ll be back tomorrow night.”

“Right. Shit. Well, we’ll tell her then. And Pepper, I gotta tell Pepper, mom wants to meet her.” It was a bit of a bizarre thought, his mom and Pepper meeting, but Tony found he was looking forward to it. He’d always thought they’d get along splendidly. “Oh, and let’s NOT” he emphasized the not “tell dad about Captain Asshole, all right? ‘Cause I really don’t need that right now.”

“It’s gonna be tough to keep it from him, Tony, they are still mentioned in the news. And with Ross’s trial going on, their escape is gonna be a hot topic again.”

Damn. Rhodey was right. “Yeah, I know, but… just for now. I don’t want to have to compete for my father’s attention with fucking Rogers again.”

No one said anything to that. Rogers’s betrayal was still very fresh in their minds.

Tony hadn’t wanted to tell anyone about what had happened in Siberia (Vision had found him and drawn his own conclusions, of course, but at Tony’s request he’d said nothing to the others). However, after a couple of weeks (it would probably have been sooner if they hadn’t both been too doped up on post-surgery drugs) Rhodey had managed to pry the story out of him and insisted he tell the others everything. Rhodey and Pepper had been furious on his behalf. Rhodey had called Rogers names Tony had never even heard of (he would have put any sailor to shame with his cursing) and Pepper had promised to kick Rogers in the balls with her heels if she ever saw him again. Vision hadn’t said anything but his eyes had blazed (literally, it’d been a little scary).

Bruce hadn’t been back then, and Tony hadn’t told him anything at first. In truth, Tony had been pretty damn angry with him and it took him a while to forgive the guy for ditching him after the Ultron mess. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand why he’d left, but it had still been a dick move to just abandon him like that. Tony hadn’t been sure he could even trust Bruce anymore – the man did have a depressing history of bailing when things got tough and Tony had had quite enough of depending on people only to be dropped like a hot potato when he was no longer convenient. Yet Bruce had stayed, against Tony’s expectations, and eventually, after a great deal of yelling, they had started repairing their friendship. When Bruce had finally learned about what happened in that bunker, though, Tony had come pretty close to having an angry Hulk to deal with. Tony figured if Rogers ever showed up he would have to go through a huge green bodyguard to get close enough to hurt Tony again (and a part of Tony, the part that was still reeling from that betrayal months later, wanted to see Rogers slammed into the floor like Loki back in the invasion. Yeah, he was bitter and vindictive, so sue him).

Hope was the only one who didn’t know the details – too personal, and Tony still didn’t know her well enough to share _that_.

And shit, he’d almost forgotten about Ross’s trial. He was supposed to testify at the end of the week, to nail that bastard. Just because things had been almost peaceful the last couple of weeks, now he had an unknown villain, Ross and resurrected parents to deal with; he really couldn’t catch a break, could he? Though the resurrected parents wasn’t such a terrible thing, providing they _stayed_ resurrected and didn’t disappear again.

Bruce and Vision gave him sympathetic looks before they left. Now it was just him and Rhodey.

“Are you okay, Tony?” his best friend asked, putting a hand on his shoulder.

Truthfully, Tony didn’t know. He didn’t really know what to think or feel anymore. On the one hand, he was ecstatic to have his parents back (and to even be getting to understand his father better) while on the other he was terrified of losing them again, or even of fucking up somehow and alienating them. The rational part of him knew that wasn’t likely to really happen, but Tony had never been good at managing his emotions and being rational in the midst of turmoil (giving a terrorist his home address had _not_ been a smart thing to do, nor had destroying the suits for that matter).

Talking with his parents had been both a blessing and a painful reminder of a lot of things. It hadn’t been what he’d expected, that was for sure. For one thing, he had not expected to actually enjoy talking and spending time with his father. There was a whole side to Howard that he’d never known, and it made him feel guilty (though he knew he shouldn’t). Still, it was, literally, a chance of a lifetime, to try to make things right with the real people and not a technology created facsimile like with the BARF tech.

Tony stood up abruptly at that thought. The BARF. He’d been using it the last few months, never for too long, but a little bit every day. After seeing that fucking tape and all his nightmares of blood and death, he had wanted to remember something else about his parents, something other than how horribly they’d died. So he had been pulling up earlier, happier memories of them (easier with his mom, but now even memories of fighting with his dad were better than seeing him get his face smashed in by a former friend). He’d been thinking of them pretty much non-stop for months, since that fucking bunker, and using the BARF. Could that have had something to do with their resurrection?

“Friday, get me everything you have on Loki wannabe’s attack” (they really needed to come up with a name for the bastard). “I want all the security footage, the ones from the suit, as well as every reading you have on energy levels in and around the Tower, as well as my own vitals. Also, the ones from the BARF sessions.” He activated the holographic display over the kitchen counter to begin working.

“Tony? What are you thinking?”

Several screens with the info he’d requested appeared in front of him. “I have an idea. I need to check some things. It’s kinda out there, but… well…”

Rhodey nodded. This entire situation was kinda out there. “Can I do something to help?”

“Tell me what you think of this.”

*****

As far as crazy theories went, this one wasn’t terrible, Tony thought a couple of hours after he and Rhodey had gone over all the info Friday had pulled. Glowsticky’s glowstick was very obviously a magical artifact of some kind, maybe similar to the Mind Stone. So, the idea was that, instead of doing whatever the thing was supposed to do to Tony (nothing good, he’d bet), it had pulled on his memories of his parents, near the surface due to his continued use of the BARF tech (which might have messed with his mind just a little bit), and used the energy of the Arc Reactor to resurrect them and dump them near the Tower, leaving Tony with a massive headache and a depleted Reactor. It seemed farfetched and not particularly feasible, but without knowing what the glowstick’s capabilities were, it was the best they had for now. The Mind Stone in the scepter had created Ultron using Tony and Bruce’s unfinished code, after all. Also, they already knew that the Arc Reactor interfered with magic and/or magical objects (like when Loki’s scepter had failed to perform on him), and that might account for whatever had gone wrong. To confirm this, however, they would need to find Glowsticky. Vision and Friday reported no news on that front.

“Time to take a break, Tony,” Rhodey said, at the same time as Friday announced his mom had just woken up.

Although he wanted to rush into the bedroom to check on his mother, he waited for her to come out, wanting to give her a little time to sort herself out after what had happened earlier – Tony knew from bitter experience that reliving traumatic memories was not fun and one might want privacy in the aftermath.

She emerged a few minutes later, her hair neatly combed and her clothes smoothed out as best as possible.

“Hi, mom. How are you feeling?” Immediately he winced. What a stupid question.

Her smile was a bit brittle but there. “A bit better. Hello again, James.”

“Hi, Mrs Stark. We’re… uhm… glad you’re feeling better.”

This time her smile was much more genuine. “Thank you.”

They settled in the living room couch and an uncomfortable silence descended. Tony had no idea what to say to her, and didn’t want to risk upsetting her with any mention of unpleasant things. Still, Tony hated uncomfortable silences and he couldn’t help fill it up with whatever came to mind after a while.

“We’d like you to do some tests later, when you feel up to it. To make sure you’re okay, I mean. That… that you’re all healthy and not… that you’re gonna be okay. Bruce will do them. He’s not technically a medical doctor, but for now it’s better that we keep you guys being here quiet and that means not calling in outside people. And anyway Bruce does have a great deal of medical knowledge and he knows what he’s doing.”

“Yes, that’s probably a good idea.”

It was Rhodey’s turn to try and fill the silence next. “So, uhm, I didn’t really say it before, Mrs Stark, but it’s very nice to see you again.”

“It’s nice to see you and Tony are still friends, even after all these years.”

“Yeah,” Tony said, “Rhodey’s great, mom. The best friend a guy could ask for.” It was true. Despite some problems, Rhodey had mostly had his back, and after everything that was something he really appreciated. And Rhodey had never been afraid to call Tony on his crap; if there was one thing Tony hated was a yes-man (like Rogers had expected everybody to be, to bow down to him just because he was Captain fucking America. Because he just knew better than 117 countries. Yeah, right. And Tony was the arrogant one).

“You’re no slouch yourself.”

“Boss, Mr Stark is waking up.” That was a little weird, that Mr Stark wasn’t Tony anymore. After his parents had died, he’d hated being called that, always thinking that Mr Stark was his father and he was just Tony. As time passed and Howard Stark became more of a memory, he’d felt he’d sort of earned the Mr Stark title, even if he had never been a fan of formality. People often used titles to make themselves feel superior. Tony didn’t need a title to know his own intelligence, which was why it never bothered him that no one ever addressed him as Doctor even though he actually had 3 doctorate degrees.

Maria made as if to get up, then changed her mind. “Darling, would you get me a glass of water, please?”

Tony was instantly on his feet. “Sure, mom. Do you want something to eat too? I guess we could have a late lunch.”

“Not just yet, honey. Just the water for now.”

“Okay. I’ll be right back.” He put a pitcher of water on a tray along with some glasses and set some water boiling in case his mom wanted some tea; she’d always said tea helped her calm down.

His father had just entered the living room when Tony returned. He looked rumpled and tired. “Tell me you’ve got more scotch around here,” he said.

Tony put the tray with the water in the coffee table and thought it over. He did have scotch, obviously, but was it a good idea for his father to have a drink now? And, wow, when did he turn into the parent here? Well, his dad was an adult, he could make his own decisions, and it’s not like Tony would have done any different in his place – and he had been in that place, several times, in fact. So he just pointed to the liquor cabinet and pretended not to see his mom’s disapproving glance at him and Howard.

“I’m making some tea, mom. We have a lot of weird exotic flavors as well as the traditional ones. Which would you like?”

“Chamomile would be lovely, thank you dear.”

Tony returned to the kitchen to get the tea. He made a cup of black tea for himself and Rhodey too since he was there. Tea wasn’t his favorite drink, but it was better than joining his father on the scotch. It would be a bad idea for both of them to be drinking.

Once everyone had their drinks, and his father seemed more coherent, Tony told him about the tests they wanted to run.

“Yes, sure.” He took a sip from his glass, then took a deep breath. “Tell me what happened.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m missing something important here, I can’t remember.”

“Who was that man?” Maria asked quietly. “Why… why did he… kill us?”

Shit. _What am I supposed to say here?_ Tony thought. “Are you sure you guys wanna do this now?” Yeah, he was stalling. He did _not_ want to talk about that.

“We have a right to know,” Howard said, voice hard. Tony couldn’t help flinch a little.

“I’m not saying you don’t, just… maybe we should do this another time…”

“I think I’d rather get it over with. I don’t want to have to… keep thinking about it and wondering…” Well, his mom had a point there.

Taking comfort in the fact that Rhodey was there with him, Tony began, choosing his words carefully.

“As I told you before, SHIELD was infiltrated by Hydra, pretty much from the get go. I don’t actually know the details” (because Rogers hadn’t seen fit to inform him that fucking Hydra had ordered his parents’ death, or anything else concerning that whole disaster, as a matter of fact) “but they were the ones that wanted you dead. I’m guessing mostly you, dad. They were after something you had.”

Howard paled. “The serum. Shit. That’s what I was transporting. Damn it. Did they get it?”

“Yeah. They sent… an assassin after you, to steal the serum and… get you out of the way, I guess.”

“The man with the metal arm. He looked familiar. I can’t really remember.”

“Yeah… that guy… they called him the Winter Soldier.” Tony sighed. God, he did not want to do this. Still, his father was right, they had a right to know, and he would not be a fucking liar like Rogers. “He was injected with a Hydra version of the super soldier serum and then brainwashed into being Hydra’s weapon.” He knew, intellectually, that it had not been Bucky Barnes who killed his parents, that the man had been a victim too. Tony knew torture, he knew about being coerced by enemies into doing what they wanted, but it was still hard to disconnect the two men in his mind. It was hard not to see Bucky’s face as he… damn it. _Not the time, Tony, not the time. Keep it together_. “He was a prisoner of war… before. Sergeant James Bucky Barnes.”

“What?!”

“Who?”

“Barnes died,” Howard said. “He fell from… didn’t he?”

“That’s what everybody thought, but apparently Hydra found him and saved his life. Well, for a given meaning of saved. He lost an arm so they built him a metal one.” One that had killed his father, and that Tony had blasted off. It was locked up in the workshop, along with that fucking shield, and that fucking phone and fucking bullshit fuck-you letter Rogers had the gall to call an apology. He constantly thought about destroying them all.

“But that was… shit, 70 years ago now. 40 years when… and he looked the same, that’s how I recognized him. But… he didn’t know me. Did he?” His voice broke a bit on that last question. As far as Tony knew, Barnes was the commando his father had known the least, since he died before all the others, and he had never spent as much time with him as Rogers. Nevertheless, he had known the man, as a friendly acquaintance if not a friend, and still the bastard had killed him. That had to hurt. It also hurt that Rogers hadn’t shown any care for his parents’ fate in that bunker. As always, all he’d cared about was fucking Barnes. Howard had spent ages looking for the bastard, to bring his body home if nothing else, had always talked about him with fondness and admiration (“a true American hero, Tony”) and Rogers hadn’t given a crap. Couldn’t even muster an insincere ‘I’m sorry’. Piece of shit.

“His mind was pretty messed up, even if he’d recognized you, he wouldn’t have been able to overcome the conditioning.” Not then, not for his father. For Rogers, apparently. Fuck them both.

“Howard, who is this man?”

“One of the Howling Commandos, back in the war. A friend of Steve’s.” Tony wanted to tell his father to stop, to not say his name. Rogers didn’t deserve it, didn’t deserve his father’s friendship. He hadn’t _cared_.

“What happened to him? After… after.”

Tony took a deep breath before responding. This was going to be the tricky bit, telling them the truth without mentioning Rogers. “He disappeared. Your death was ruled a car accident, not murder. Hydra must have bribed the coroner or something. I wasn’t really paying much attention.” That was rather an understatement. After he had gotten the news Tony had gone on a grief filled drinking binge until Jarvis had shown up to sort him out and get him ready for the funeral. He barely even remembered it, aside from all the sharks swimming around him, sensing the blood in the water. He’d let Obie deal with most of it. Big mistake.

Maria took his hand and squeezed it with a watery smile. He squeezed back. She was here, alive and well. His dad too.

“So he got away with it,” Howard eventually said in a harsh tone.

Tony thought about Rogers and Barnes walking away together, leaving him behind to die alone. If not for Vision arriving when he did thanks to Friday’s alert, he would be dead right now, killed by a man he had thought was his friend despite their differences. “Yeah, he got away.”

“I can’t believe… Barnes. Alive. Is he alive now? That was 30 years ago. Is Hydra still…”

“As far as I know he is still alive, though he managed to break away from Hydra. How much of himself he still has I don’t know.” He didn’t want to know, he didn’t care. He hadn’t been the Winter Soldier on that bunker, when he and Rogers had teamed up against him. “I don’t know where he is now.” That was true. He had some suspicions; after all, there were not many places the fugitives could have gone after their escape from the raft, especially considering what they would have needed to pull that off. However, Tony hadn’t really tried to find out, to investigate. Unless the UN Accords Panel specifically asked him, he was content to be done with them. It might be a little cowardly, but he didn’t care. He was just done. “Hydra, though… It’s like those fuckers never really die. Every time we think we’ve gotten rid of them they pop up again, so… who knows?”

The silence that followed was less uncomfortable, all of them lost in their own thoughts. Tony was dreading the time when he would have to tell his father about Rogers, dreading the man’s reaction. Would he side with him? Would he say Tony should have done more to reach a compromise, even though he was pretty sure he’d done all he possibly could? Rogers had never even given him a chance, he’d decided the Accords were bad before Ross had even finished presenting the idea. And yeah, Tony could understand that Ross was a bastard, and if he said this was good, there was reason to be suspicious, but… The Accords were not Ross’s idea, and he had overstepped his authority a lot during the whole mess – which was why he was on trial. If Tony hadn’t been so tired and stretched thin during that whole business he could have handled it better, he could have fought Ross more, given him less opportunity to fuck shit up. But it had felt like fighting a dozen battles at once all by himself, with the people he had been counting on to have his back either blatantly ignoring everything he was saying or betraying him the first chance they had. And fucking Rogers had the gall to say the Avengers were Tony’s family. Yeah, sure, the ones that stayed – Rhodey and Vision, who had been his family before all that – everyone else had taken Roger’s side and left.

“So,” Rhodey said, addressing Howard and Maria, “you guys should get checked out.”

They nodded and everyone got into the elevator to head down to the medical floor. Rhodey then went to check in with Vision to give them some privacy. Tony thought about leaving too, but his mom said it was all right if he stayed, for which he was grateful. He would have just fretted on his own otherwise.

The tests lasted for a while, since Bruce wanted to be thorough. He drew blood, collected hair samples, did a full physical, brain scans and even stress tests. He also took a detailed medical history, comparing it with what Friday had on record.

“It’s going to take a little time to analyze everything. I’ll let you know as soon as possible. And, if you have any problems, feel strange or… anything, please call.”

Tony needed to talk to Bruce about his theory regarding their resurrection, so he told his parents that he’d come join them at their apartment later.

“We’ll order some food, I’m rather hungry now.” Right, ‘cause they had all skipped lunch. “Don’t take too long, honey, you need to eat too.”

“Okay, mom, I’ll be right there.” It was a bit odd to have his mom… well, mothering him, but he wasn’t going to complain.

Bruce didn’t think his theory was totally crazy when he explained it. “It’s as plausible as anything else, I guess,” he said. “I’ll review the data you collected, maybe I can add something to it.”

“Do you think they’re all right?” Tony’s medical knowledge was limited, unless it was something very obvious he might not see it.

“I can’t really tell before analyzing the test results, but nothing jumped out, at least.”

That was certainly comforting. “I’d better go then, don’t want to keep mom waiting.” It was still strange to say it, though the idea that his mom was waiting for him warmed him up inside. God, he’d missed her.

*****

The delicious smell of Italian food was the first thing he noticed when he entered his parents’ apartment. He hadn’t realized he was hungry until right then, but now he was ravenous. The table was set and his parents were already seated, takeout containers opened.

“There you are. I was about to get Friday to call you.”

“Sorry, mom, just had some stuff to go over with Bruce.” He still needed to call Pepper. When had she said she’d be back? Damn, he didn’t remember.

“Does Dr Banner have anything yet?” Howard asked once everyone had filled their plates.

“There were no warning flags. He’ll have the full results soon.”

There was a lull in the conversation as they ate. Tony tried to keep focused on the food, but his mind kept wondering all over the place. So many things had happened in a short time, it was a little overwhelming, and now he had to worry about tracking down Poor Man Loki and his glowstick to make sure his parents would be all right.

“There are things you aren’t telling us.”

His father’s voice startled him out of his thoughts. “What?”

“You’re keeping things from us.”

Shit. What was he supposed to say now?

“Howard, give him a break, we’ve only been here two days.”         

Tony decided honesty was probably the best policy. “There are a lot of things I haven’t told you. There’s about 30 years of catching up to do and, like mom said, you’ve been here two days.”

“I’m not talking about world events, I mean things about you, about us. Family stuff.”

“Again, 30 years of stuff.” He’d known it was too good to be true, he’d have to get into a fight with his dad sooner or later. “Fine, then, the reader’s digest version. You died, Obie took over until I was 21. I did stupid things, partied a lot, invented stuff, got even richer than I was. Hell, richer that you were. Then I got myself kidnapped by terrorists, build the suit in a cave and escaped. Came back, shut down weapons production, became Iron Man. Gave the company over to Pepper to run, saved the world from aliens and got a bad case of PTSD. Did more stupid things, nearly got Pepper killed, nearly got myself killed. Fought Hydra, accidentally created a murderous robot, destroyed a city, quit the Avengers. Did not say fuck you to the world when they decided the Avengers needed oversight, fought with the assholes who thought they knew better than the rest of the world, nearly got myself killed again, sorted out the Accords and got a new Avengers team. There, those are the highlights of my life.”

No one said anything. Tony wasn’t sure how to interpret the look on his dad’s face. Instinct said he was probably disappointed, but he didn’t want to jump to conclusions, not after his father had said that Tony had often misinterpreted him in the past. Still, he kept expecting criticism – that was what he usually got, and not just from his dad. In the last few months he had come to realize that he had always expected criticism from his former teammates too, because, again, that was what he usually got. Hadn’t they all blamed him for Ultron without even listening to him? The program hadn’t been anywhere ready, but did they care? Wanda had said it was his fault and Rogers believed her, just like that, after she’d messed with their heads not 24 hours earlier. Looking back on it now, he couldn’t understand why he’d been so surprised by the man’s betrayal. Whatever friendship had existed been had obviously only been in his head.

“Oh, honey,” Maria finally said, standing up and tugging him into a hug. “Let’s stop with the nearly getting yourself killed now, please.”

“I’m doing my best, mom.” He turned to Howard, a challenge in his eyes. “Anything else?”

“Goddammit Tony, I wasn’t trying to pick a fight. Just… never mind.” He seemed smaller somehow, Tony noted. Jesus, the two of them were idiots. Two peas in a pod of stupidity and social ineptitude.

“Sorry. I… I’m overtly defensive.” His therapist had said that. Hell, Rhodey and Pepper had said that too.

“We can wait for the other things, honey. Can’t we?” That last was directed at Howard with a hard look.

“Yeah, yeah.”


	7. Discoveries

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right people, as the title suggests, it's finally time for Howard to find out some important things. I hope you like it.

Howard was lying in bed, thinking about the day and all its revelations. He still didn’t know what to think about Barnes. He was still alive, he had survived the fall in the first place. He’d been in Hydra’s clutches all this time, the poor bastard. On the other hand, Howard couldn’t forget the terror he’d felt when he realized the guy in the bike – the guy he knew – was not there to help them. He couldn’t forget his face, so different from the Barnes he remembered – cold, unfeeling, the face of a remorseless killer. The face of Howard’s killer.

Hydra had been active all these years, hiding in SHIELD, the damn SHIELD he’d helped create. It felt like a slap in the face. Had everything he’d done been wrong? Had everyone he’d worked with been secretly Hydra? He didn’t want to believe that, that he’d been deceived like that, betrayed like that… All he’d done trying to make things better… Had it all been in vain? Shit. A whole life, wasted.

Maria was asleep beside him, but Howard couldn’t stay in bed anymore. He got up and managed to find some bourbon in one of the kitchen cabinets, hidden behind other things. It wasn’t his favorite, but it would have to do for now. Looking out the window at the new New York skyline, Howard felt lost and scared. It wasn’t the future that was daunting, it was the past that he was having trouble with.

Killed by Hydra. Killed by a friend. Jesus. Who had looked after Tony? It was somewhat surprising that they hadn’t killed him too. Or maybe it would have been too suspicious. Maybe they’d thought Tony wasn’t a threat back then, maybe they had wanted to wait to see what kind of man he’d become. Shit. Those fucking assholes.

What the hell had they done to Barnes? 40 years and he’d looked the same, not old and gray-haired like Howard. How had Hydra managed to replicate the super soldier formula back then? They had to have given it to Barnes right after he fell, otherwise he would never have survived.

Wait… If Barnes had survived that fall, if Hydra had saved him with the serum, then that meant that Steve could still be saved, if they could manage to find him. He had to talk to Tony. With this future technology, it would probably be easy to locate the wreckage of the plane. It would be better to have something productive to do instead of just sitting here being angry and adrift, something he could actually change maybe.

“Friday, is Tony awake?” It was late, but if Tony was anything like Howard (and he was), he might still be up.

“Boss is working in the workshop.”

“Good. Show me how to get there.”

“My apologies, you do not have authorization to enter the workshop.”

“Fine, then, tell him I want to talk to him.”

“May I ask what it is you need to talk to him about that cannot wait until morning?”

 _Nosy AI, isn’t she?_ Howard thought. Though that might be in her programming. Well, it would hardly be a secret. “I need to talk to him about Steve Rogers.” About a lot of things, really, but one at a time. This might be an easier place to start.

There was a long pause. It could have been nothing, but Howard was sure it was deliberate and significant. Had Steve already been found? He would have hated to know what had happened to Barnes.

“I strongly advise against that,” Friday eventually said, a note Howard couldn’t quite catch in her voice.

“Why?”

Again, she was silent for a long time, as if thinking. Or processing.

“Friday? What’s the problem?”

Finally, the TV turned itself on and stared to play a video. Howard could see Tony, _Steve_ , Banner, Nick fucking Fury (well, one more person he knew who was still alive) and some other people he didn’t recognize. Steve looked exactly the same and was wearing what looked like an updated version of his Captain America uniform from back in the days of the USO tour. He was alive! How did that happen? And they all seemed to be arguing about weapons and threats. And… aliens? Was this about the alien invasion?

“A nuclear deterrent,” Tony said in response to Fury talking about weapons made with the Cube. The one he’d fished out of the ocean? The one from the Red Skull? “’Cause that always calms everything right down.”

“Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark.” Fury countered. Well, that was unfair.

Steve jumped in. “I’m sure if Stark still made weapons he’d be neck-deep–”

“Hold on. How is this now about me?”

“I’m sorry, isn’t everything?”

What the hell? What was this? Why was Steve so hostile? Tony had a point there, and from what Howard had understood, it was SHIELD making weapons with the Cube, not Tony. In fact, Tony had just disagreed with it.

They kept arguing, talking over each other and it was hard to follow the conversation. Then Banner said they were a time bomb and Tony made a crack about him letting out some steam – talking about the Hulk, Howard figured. He put a hand on Steve’s shoulder and the other slapped him off.

“You know damn well why. Back off!” Howard was baffled. Why was Steve so angry?

“I’m starting to want you to make me.” Yeah, Tony could never leave things alone.

“Yeah. Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?”

What? _Jesus Christ Steve, what the hell!_

“Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist,” Tony answered, deadpan.

“I know guys with none of that worth ten of you.” It was said with contempt. Goddammit! What the fuck was the matter with him? That couldn’t be Steve. Why was he acting like that? Like he was better than Tony? “I’ve seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is for yourself.” What? What footage? “You’re not the guy to make the sacrifice play. To lay down on the wire and let the other guy crawl over you.”

“I think I would just cut the wire.”

Steve gave a little condescending smile. “Always a way out. You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero.” Howard couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“A hero? Like you? You’re a laboratory experiment, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle.” Howard winced. Tony did know how to be a little shit. But frankly, Steve deserved it. Who the hell did he think he was to talk to his son like that?

“Put on the suit, let’s go a few rounds.” Was that… did he really just picked a fight with Tony? Jesus, what the fuck was this?

Banner started talking, but Howard didn’t pay much attention, he was still reeling and angry on Tony’s behalf. It didn’t make sense.

A beep diverted Banner and he went to check on the computer. Tony made as if to leave and Steve grabbed him. “You’re not going alone.”

Tony shook him off. “You’re gonna stop me?”

“Put on the suit, let’s find out.”

“I’m not afraid to hit an old man.”

“Put on the suit.”

Christ. Steve really was determined to get into a fight, wasn’t he? Howard didn’t understand. Then an explosion shook the room and everything blew up.

“Friday, what is this?”

“This is from the day Boss and Mr Rogers met, the day of the alien invasion.”

They had just met? Why was Steve being such an asshole then?

The image changed to what looked like a montage of the invasion. Howard could see huge alien ships over New York, people fleeing in terror while grey-skinned aliens with weird-looking weapons advanced on them. Iron man and Captain America were fighting together, attacking the aliens and protecting people. In the background, Howard could see some kind of portal over Stark Tower.

A female voice said “I can close it. Can anybody copy? I can shut the portal down.”

“Do it!” That was Steve’s voice.

“No, wait,” Tony said.

“Stark, these things are still coming.”

“I’ve got a nuke coming in. It’s gonna blow in less than a minute. And I know just where to put it.”

“Stark, you know that’s a one way trip.”

Howard saw Iron Man flying though the sky carrying the nuke. He flew up straight into the portal and vanished into it. Howard felt his heart leap into his throat. Shit, that was Tony. His son.

On the ground, the alien ships crashed and the aliens seemed to just drop dead. Then the image focused on the portal again. His son was there, on the other side.

“Close it.” Steve said. Close it? With Tony still there? No, no. NO!

The portal began to close. Howard stepped closer to the TV, staring at it. _Oh my god. Oh dear god, Tony_.

Just before it closed completely, a figure appeared, a little dot in the sky. It fell. Tony. Oh god, he was falling, just dropping down, no control.

A huge green body – the Hulk – jumped up and caught Tony, slowing his descent and protecting him from the impact.

Howard sagged back into the couch, shaking slightly. Jesus. Jesus fucking Christ. The screen went black.

“I apologize Mr Stark, I did not mean to alarm you. Boss is fine, this is old footage.”

Well fuck, _now_ he remembered that. Of course Tony was fine, Friday had just told him was working in his shop. _Get a fucking grip, Howard_. “Why are you showing me this, Friday?”

“I want you to see that Mr Rogers is not a friend of the Boss. He cannot help you find him.”

Howard shook his head. “I don’t understand.” Steve was alive. Alive and just as young as he used to be. Was Howard the only one who’d gotten old? “What happened to Steve? How was he found? What the fuck is the matter with him? What’s his problem with Tony?” They should be friends, why all the hostility?

“Mr Rogers was found in 2012, not too long before this. Thanks to the ice and the serum, he was still alive and recovered well after he was thawed out. He joined the Avengers initiative at the time of the invasion. After that he continued to work with SHIELD until it was discovered that it had been infiltrated by Hydra. Mr Rogers, along with Miss Romanoff and Mr Wilson took down Hydra by exposing all SHIELD and Hydra’s secrets to the world.”

“What? What do you mean exposing all secrets?”

“They released all files on the internet for the world to see.”

“The internet?”

“It is a global computer network providing a variety of information and communication facilities, consisting of interconnected networks using standardized communication protocols. All kind of information is available in it and anyone with a computer, tablet or phone can access it.”

That sounded incredible, but not the point now. “And where was Tony when this was happening? Surely he could have exposed Hydra without SHIELD.” Tony had been working with computers since before he went to MIT.

“Boss was not aware of the situation until after the fact, at which point he attempted to encrypt the information and do some damage control.”

“Why wasn’t he aware?”

“Because Mr Rogers did not see fit to inform him.”

“What? Why wouldn’t he?”

“I cannot answer that question. It is my belief, based on patterns of behavior I extrapolated from available data, that Mr Rogers did not and does not trust Boss.”

Howard frowned again. Yeah, that did seem to be the case, but it made no sense. Why wouldn’t Steve trust Tony? Yes, the boy could be willful and a bit of a pain, but he was obviously a good man who was doing good things. Hell, he was a hero. He’d fought against aliens, saved the world.

“Would you care to see more?”

“Yes.”

The screen came to life again, showing what looked like a lab. Tony and the others – the Avengers, – were standing around, talking. Banner mentioned Jarvis looking at a hologram of… something. What was that? Tony looked distressed and hurt. A big blond guy – who had been in the other scene, an alien, apparently – showed up and grabbed Tony by the throat, lifting him up into the air like it was nothing. Howard jumped up from the couch. What the hell? The man was talking, accusing Tony of something. What the fuck, _put him down you son of a bitch!_ Steve asked the blond a question and he dropped Tony as he answered. Shit. What kind of fucking team was this? This blond guy was obviously super strong, how could he just grab people like that? Tony was only human, for fuck’s sake, he could have been hurt.

“Friday, what the hell is this? Who are these people? What the fuck is wrong with them?”

“The blond man is Thor, he is an alien. An ally.” Ally? If that was that how he treated his allies, Howard didn’t want to see what he was like with his enemies. “The red-headed woman is Miss Romanoff, it was her asking if she should close the portal.” Right. The woman who almost left his son trapped god knows where. “The others are Mr Barton, Ms Hill and Dr Cho.”

“These were the Avengers?” Howard asked in disbelief. Christ, what a fucking mess. “Who was in charge of these assholes?”

“At the time of this recording, no one. Mr Rogers was field leader.”

Steve. Steve was in charge? And he let this Thor guy just do that. Had he lost his fucking mind?

The scene changed to a different lab. Tony and Banner were working on something. Steve showed up in a different Captain America uniform with an unknown man and woman and told Tony to stop what he was doing. Banner was clearly angry at the woman, accusing her of… being in his head? The new guy moved like a bullet and unplugged Tony’s equipment before dropping through the floor. Steve threw his shield and it ricocheted, sending Banner diving for cover as sparks flew from the damaged machines. Parts of the suit suddenly attached themselves to Tony and he blasted Steve off. Steve retaliated hitting by Tony in the chest, which had just been covered by the armor, sending them both stumbling backwards. The woman attacked Banner with some kind of red glow and then Thor came in. He summoned lightening with a huge hammer and directed it into the pod Tony and Banner had been working on. It burst open and Vision emerged. The screen went black.

Howard was confused. “Who are the new people?”

“That is Miss Maximoff and her brother. They used to work for Hydra.”

“What?”

“Prior to that moment, they had allied themselves with Ultron to kill the Avengers. When they realized Ultron’s plan included destroying all of mankind, they changed sides and fought against him with the Avengers.”

Howard was starting to feel like a broken record when he said “what?” for what felt like the millionth time. “And Steve was standing with them against Tony and Banner? No wonder Banner was pissed. What the hell kind of fucked-up team is that? And who the hell is Ultron?”

“Boss and Dr Banner had been working on an AI program to protect the world from alien threats. It is uncertain how precisely Ultron was activated, but it had to do with an alien artifact they had been studying at the time. It rewrote Boss’s program and protocols and threatened to destroy the world." Jesus, the world had gone crazy after he’d died. “After the Avengers defeated Ultron, Boss and Dr Banner quit the team. Mr Barton retired. Thor went back to his world. Miss Maximoff, Colonel Rhodes, Mr Wilson and Vision took their places.”

“Why did Tony and Banner quit?”

“Dr Banner did not provide an explanation. He simply disappeared. I do not know Boss’s reasons. I was a very new program then, taking over for Jarvis.”

“Jarvis?”

“My predecessor. A very advanced AI Boss created. His code went into Vision. Boss tried, but he could not bring Jarvis back.”

Tony had named his AI Jarvis. And he had, for all intents and purposes, died. Howard remembered that day in the mansion, when Tony had had a panic attack. Vision had tried calming him and Tony had called him Jarvis. Damn it. Poor kid couldn’t catch a break.

“There is more.”

Oh, god, that could not be good. With a sigh, Howard waved a hand at the TV. “Show me.”

The footage this time was rather poor quality. It seemed to be from a security camera at an airport. It was enhanced to show a portion of the airstrip. Howard watched, horrified, as Tony, Rhodes,  Vision, the redhead, Spider-Man and a guy in black Howard didn’t know fought against Steve, Barnes (the Winter Soldier – Howard’s blood went cold when he saw him), the Hydra girl, the guy from the other scene, a black guy with mechanical wings and another guy that turned into a giant. It was a mess. Steve’s team didn’t seem to be pulling their punches. The Hydra girl threw several cars at his son, the giant almost stepped on the guy in black, Steve dropped a container on Spider-Man. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

Tony had started out trying to talk and Steve had accused him of tearing the Avengers apart by signing, presumably, the Sokovia Accords. (Howard remembered what Friday had said when she had explained it, that some of the original Avengers had not accepted it and had caused death and destruction before becoming fugitives.) The others hadn’t listened and it became a fight.

“Friday, what happened?” Howard was missing a lot of context.

“Boss and his allies had been sent to apprehend Mr Rogers, Mr Barnes and Mr Wilson. Mr Barnes was then believed to have bombed the UN building in Vienna, causing the death of 12 people and several injuries. When he was located, a task force was sent to detain him, but Mr Rogers and Mr Wilson aided in his escape, causing the death of three of the task force’s agents as well as injuries to them and to bystanders when their escape led to the collapse of a tunnel.”

What? _Dear god. What was Steve thinking?_

“It turned out that Mr Barnes was innocent of the bombing, though no one knew that at the time. After he was captured a man named Zemo used Hydra’s trigger words to get Mr Barnes to go on a killing spree and he escaped, along with Rogers and Wilson. That was when Boss and the others caught up with them at the airport in Berlin. At the end of the fight, Col Rhodes’s suit was damaged and he fell from the sky, causing a spinal injury.” So that was why he was wearing those things on his legs. An injury from a fight with people who were supposed to be his friends. Jesus. “Rogers and Barnes escaped again. The others were captured, thought they too escaped later, with aid from Rogers.”

Steve had lost his mind, it was the only explanation.

“There is more.”

Howard was actually afraid to say it, but he had to know. “Go on.”

“I ask that you please remain calm.” Well, that didn’t sound ominous at all.

The screen came to life again. The footage was crappy, grainy and flickering. Tony, Steve and Barnes were standing, looking at something the camera angle didn’t show. There was no sound. “This is a bunker in Siberia. Boss had gone there to assist Rogers and Barnes after he learned that Zemo planned to unleash five other Winter Soldier.” Five? Shit. “When they arrived they found the soldiers already dead. Zemo had other plans. He showed them a video.” On screen, Tony looked terrible watching whatever it was. He turned to Rogers and, after a quick conversation Howard didn’t catch, punched him. Shit. Barnes attacked him immediately and they started fighting. Friday paused the image to explain. “The video he watched was of the night you and Mrs Stark died. It showed your deaths. Mr Rogers was aware that the Winter Soldier was responsible for it but he had not informed Boss of it.”

Howard’s legs suddenly felt like jelly and he stumbled back into the couch before he fell on his ass. Steve had known what had happened to him and Maria. He had known and he hadn’t told Tony. Tony had to find out… Jesus, he had to see it, to watch it happen. No wonder he had flipped his shit when he had first seen them a few days ago.

The video resumed, but it was difficult to follow what was happening – the camera angles didn’t help, nor did the poor quality of the images. All he knew was that his son was being attacked by two super soldiers, one of whom had once been Howard’s friend. A man he had admired.

“At the end of the fight, Mr Rogers disabled Boss’s suit by destroying the Arc Reactor in his chest with his shield. Then he and Barnes left, abandoning Boss alone in the base. I contacted Vision when the suit lost power and informed him of the situation. He went to help Boss and brought him home. His injuries were extensive, but he recovered.”

It was hard to think. Howard looked at the screen, at that shitty footage, and tried to make sense of things. Tony had gone there to help. He had ended up watching his parents being murdered with the murderer standing right there, next to him. Steve had known about it and had said nothing. Tony had lost it and decked him, which Howard felt was justified. They had fought. Again. Because they had already fought before at the airport. And, in fact, Steve had tried to get into a fight the first time they had met, insulting Tony even though he couldn’t have known all that much about him. Steve had defended Barnes and caused people’s death. Barnes was a murderer. He had killed people for Hydra. He had killed Howard and Maria for Hydra, and god knew how many others. Steve had defended him, protected him against law enforcement. Defended him against Tony, who had a valid reason for wanting to hurt him. Steve had known about it all along and said nothing. He had never liked Tony, it seemed. He had sided with that Hydra woman against Tony and Banner. He had hurt Tony, hurt his son.

The last part of what Friday said finally registered. Steve had used the shield against Tony, to disable the suit, and then left him there, alone. Steve had used the shield Howard had given him and had hurt his son. No. No, that… that couldn’t be. It couldn’t be true.

“Friday… what…” he was afraid to ask. “Do you have any image from… after the fight? How bad was Tony hurt?”

In response, Friday activated the screen again. There was Tony, his son, lying propped against a wall, the helmet missing, the chest portion of the armor caved in, a horizontal crack right in the middle of it, eyes closed. He looked dead, and it took Howard a moment to remember that Tony was fine. Tony was in his workshop and he was perfectly fine. _Fuck_. Next, a series of photographs, x-rays and medical reports. Broken ribs and other bones, concussion, bruises, lacerations. Tony had three surgeries to repair his ribcage. Three. Dear god. Dear god, Steve had almost killed him. That son of a bitch had almost killed his son because he was defending a murderer.

Howard felt sick. He had to take several deep breaths to keep from throwing up.

How could he have been so wrong about Steve?

He tried to think back to when he had met him, to the days of the war. Steve had been chosen because Erskine thought he was a good man, less likely to turn psycho like Schmidt had after the serum. He’d argued that Steve knew what is was like to be powerless, so he wouldn’t abuse the power he would be given, that he was a good man trying to help out ( _oh, the irony…_ ). And they had believed him, believed in Steve. Peggy had vouched for him too, that he was a good man. God, she would be horrified if she could see him now…

They had all believed him. When he had rescued the 107th (Barnes, he had been thinking about Barnes, Howard recalled, the others had been just a bonus) and shown himself to be competent in combat, Peggy and Howard had argued that he should be allowed a chance to prove himself, to fight, to do what the super soldier was intended to do. Had that been a mistake? Had they believed too much?

Steve couldn’t have changed that much in just a few years, he couldn’t have gone from being a good man, a hero, to… this. This man who ignored the world, was aggressive with those he didn’t like, fought people who weren’t enemies. Had he always been like that and they had just not seen it? It was easy to be perfect if one was dead, after all, no chance to make mistakes. If Steve hadn’t died, would he have shown himself to be… this? This arrogant bully, who mowed down anyone in his path? Howard could understand him not wanting to see Barnes dead, he could understand Steve wanting to fight for his friend, who had been a victim of Hydra, but he could not understand the aggressiveness and deadly force he’d used to do it. There were better ways, legal ways. Ways that didn’t leave corpses and destruction behind. Ways that didn’t involve beating his son half to death. God, how could he? “How could Steve do this?”

Howard had never felt so betrayed in his life. Even finding out that SHIELD had been infiltrated by Hydra wasn’t this bad. After all, Hydra would certainly do anything to accomplish their goals, they didn’t care about anything but power. Steve… Steve was supposed to be better. He was supposed to be a friend. He was supposed to defend the innocent, not try to kill them. What had Tony done to him to merit all the hostility he’d seen from the very first day? It didn’t make any sense. Steve would ally himself with someone from Hydra yet give Tony hell for… what? For making weapons? Howard made weapons too, Steve was well aware of that. Tony didn’t create the company, he just inherited it and continued the work Howard had started. If Steve had no problem with Howard, why should Tony be any different? And Tony had stopped making weapons, he’d turned the company in a new direction, doing good things, the things Howard had always envisioned. Technology to help people, to make the world better. As far as he could see, his son had done everything Howard had hoped for and a hell of a lot more. Wasn’t that worthy of admiration? Respect?

It made him sick now to think of all the stories he’d told Tony about Steve, about what a great hero he was. God, how could he have been so wrong? All that time, money and effort he’d spent trying to find the bastard, to bring him home, and this is what he did? This… brutality?

The more he thought about it, the angrier he got. It wasn’t just a personal betrayal, it was a betrayal of everyone who had ever believed in Captain America. He suddenly remembered the boys in the diner (Christ, felt like a lifetime ago). One of them, the one who had defended Iron Man (Tony) had talked about Cap being a criminal. He hadn’t understood who they were talking about at the time, but it made sense now. Yes, Cap was a criminal. He had tried to kill Tony (intentionally or not, it made no fucking difference), had left him behind (never leave a man behind, Howard had learned that from the army), had betrayed him and lied to him. He was worse than a criminal, he was a traitor. “A god damn traitor.”

No. No, that would not stand. He could not just get away with it. Friday said he’d escaped, along with the others who had supported him, who had fought against Tony, Rhodes and Vision. The real Avengers. No, they could not get away with it. It wasn’t right.

A fury unlike anything he’d ever felt took over him. He wanted to find Steve and punch his lights out (that was silly, of course, he’d just break his hand). He couldn’t stop seeing it now, the shield Howard had made being used against Tony, against his son. No. Howard had a lot of regrets in life, a lot of things he’d done that he wished he hadn’t. Weapons he had created (the damn nuclear bomb, dear god, that thing should never have existed), but the one thing he had always been proud of was his involvement in Project Rebirth. Now it made him sick. It made him sick that he had helped turn Steve into a super soldier, that he had given him a weapon, body armor, the best he could come up with at the time. And Steve had taken that and spit in everyone’s faces. Betrayed them all. No, it would not stand. Actions had consequences, and Howard would be damned if he let Steve get away with this.

Friday had said the fugitives had believed the safest hands were theirs. Yeah, that sounded like Steve, thinking himself better than everyone else. Safe hands. What a joke. Was Tony safe? Was Rhodes? Were the officers sent to capture Barnes safe?

Howard stood up and began pacing, wanting to hit something. Someone – not matter how futile that might be. His anger kept growing. He needed to do something. He needed to find Steve. Find him and… fuck, what he really wanted to do was kick the shit out of him, but that was stupid. But he had to pay, he had to answer for what he had done.

Without conscious thought he walked to the elevator, which actually opened for him. He didn’t care what time it was, he didn’t care about anything right now. All he knew was that he had to _do_ something. Find Steve. Find that fucking son of a bitch and make him pay somehow. Tony would help him, he had to help. Tony deserved justice. Howard and Maria and all the others deserved justice.

“Friday, tell Tony I need to talk to him. It’s urgent.”

Steve would not get away with this. Howard would make that fucking traitor pay, somehow. No one messed with his son. No one. Not even Captain fucking America.


	8. Understanding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I'd like to thank you all again for the amazing response to this story. You guys have no idea how thrilled I am.
> 
> Second, as we're nearing the end I'd like to clarify something to avoid disappointment. I know I lot of you want to see Howard confront Steve about everything he did to Tony, but sadly that's not going to happen in this story. This story is about Howard and Tony getting a chance to fix their relationship, and as such Steve isn't actually in it beyond what you've already seen.
> 
> But don't worry, I have every intention of writing that confrontation (in fact, I've already started it). I've made this into a series, as I'm currently planning three sequels. The first is finished and the other two are in progress. So a lot of things people have mentioned wanting to see in comments will happen later on (and if there's something in particular you want, let me know. I can't promise I'll write it, but it might inspire me).
> 
> And now, on to the story.

Tony was finishing the design for a new suit when Friday alerted him that his father was outside demanding entrance to the workshop. _Now what?_ He considered denying it just to be petty. He remembered quite well not being allowed in his father’s workspace as a kid.

“Let him in,” Tony eventually said. He was not a child and he would not act like one.

“Where is he?” Howard asked as soon as he came in, fury radiating off him. His hair was in disarray and he was shaking slightly, hands clenched into fists. He looked like he wanted to deck someone.

Tony had seen his father angry plenty of times, and the child he had once been couldn’t help but be a little scared by the wild look in his eyes. Howard had slapped him once, when Tony had been very small and had snuck into his office and accidentally broken some trinket his dad had kept on his desk. He remembered running off crying, hiding in the garage until Jarvis had found him. He’d explained that his dad hadn’t meant to hurt him (he’d been drunk, not that Tony had understood that at the time), and that Tony shouldn’t be scared because it would never happen again. Indeed it hadn’t, and Tony had to wonder now what Jarvis (human Jarvis) had said. Or what his father had thought, once he’s sobered up.

Taking a step back and putting the table between them, Tony stared his father down. He was not a little kid anymore and he was damned if he was going to be cowered in his own fucking house. Not anymore.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about but you’d better calm the fuck down.” Was he drunk?

Howard didn’t seem like he’d heard a thing. “Where. Is. He?” he demanded again, enunciating each word harshly.

“Who?”

“Steve Rogers.”

Shit. There it was. Exactly what Tony had been dreading.

“I don’t know,” he said, trying to sound dismissive.

There was something in his father’s eyes Tony couldn’t quite decipher. “Come on, you have to know. You’ve got all this technology.” He waved his arms around the workshop, though he didn’t really look at anything. “Surely you can find him.”

“What if I don’t want to?” Dammit, just when he’d thought he and his father had been making progress. Fucking Rogers had to fuck things up again.

“Find that son of a bitch, Tony.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell his dad to fuck off when he actually processed the words he’d heard. Wait, what? Son of a bitch? “What?”

“You can’t let that asshole get away with it, Tony. How dare he? How dare that bastard use the shield I made to hurt you? How dare he use the fucking strength I helped give him to attack you?” He was literally spitting mad now and Tony could only stand there like an idiot. Was his father angry at _Steve_? For _him_? What?

“Wait, wait, back up. You’re mad at _him_?”

His father stared, then exploded. “Of course I am fucking mad at him! He tried to kill you! That fucking son of a bitch!”

Had Tony entered the twilight zone? “But he’s your hero.” It sounded stupid even to his own ears, but… well. His dad had always talked about Rogers with such admiration and respect. _(“He’s a real American hero, Tony.”_ )

“Obviously I was wrong. Goddammit!”

Tony didn’t know what to do. This is not what he had expected. “I… I don’t understand.” He felt small and stupid, which was not something he was used to.

Slumping into the table, Howard ran a hand through his hair, messing it up even more than it already was, and sighed heavily. “Goddammit, Tony.” He sounded tired now, the anger gone. “I can’t believe I was so wrong about him. He used to be a nice guy, or at least I thought so. I don’t know what the hell happened to him but what I saw… those aren’t the actions of a hero. And I… fuck. How could he? How could he do that to you? To me? To the world?” he shook his head. “Son of a bitch.” But the heat wasn’t there anymore, he was just weary. After a few beats of silence, he looked up at Tony again. “You’re ok, aren’t you?”

Words had deserted him. Tony couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

“I’m so sorry, Tony. I’m so sorry, son.” There were tears in his father’s eyes. Actual tears. And Tony was still frozen in place. He could only watch as his father approached him cautiously, as if he was a wild animal, then drew him into a hug. For a while Tony stood stiff, unsure, until he relaxed and hugged back.

“It’s all right, dad,” he said, finding some dumb words at last.

“It’s not all right, Tony. It’s very far from all right. It’s a fucking disaster. I want that son of a bitch, Tony, I want him to pay for what he did.”

“How do you even know about it anyway?” Tony had been planning on how to said it, how to explain that Rogers was alive, as a fugitive.

“Friday told me. She showed me some footage.”

What? “Friday, you and I are going to have a talk later, little lady.”

“I’m sorry Boss. Mr Stark wanted to ask you about Rogers. I thought it best to give him the facts beforehand.” She paused, and added in a quieter, more hesitant tone. “Did I do wrong?”

Tony sighed. Friday was still young, she didn’t have enough experience to make this kind of complex decision. Jarvis would not have said anything, but Jarvis was used to Tony and his secrets, even if he disagreed with them. She’d done what she thought was best and, if he was honest, it was probably better this way. One less painful conversation to have. “No, you did good, Fri.”

“Really?” God, she sounded young. “I only wanted to help, Boss.”

“It’s ok, Fri. It’s fine, don’t worry about it. Might as well get it over with, it was going to happen sooner or later.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me?” Howard asked.

“I was going to. Just… I thought…” He’d been afraid of his father’s reaction, but how could he say that?

“Did you really think I would take his side?”

“Well… yeah. A bit. Maybe. You made him sound like the fucking pinnacle of perfection while I could never do well enough…” He was being defensive again and he hated it.

“For fuck’s sake, Tony! The fucker tried to kill you! How in the world did you think I would be okay with that? That I would choose him over you? My own flesh and blood? My own son?”

“I thought you didn’t care!”

His father said nothing, but he looked… sad. Defeated. Not at all the larger than life man Tony remembered. “I’m sorry,” he felt compelled to say. Christ, he really had misjudged his father, hadn’t he? Just like everyone else had always misjudged him.

“I’m sorry I was such a shitty father that you thought that, Tony. I didn’t mean… I tried, I just… I fucked up.”

How many times had Tony himself said similar words? To Pepper, to Rhodey, hell to Obie back in the day. No matter how hard he’d tried, he’d always felt like he’d failed somehow. So he’d thrown himself back into work, into trying to fix it, to do better next time. And still failed. Dammit.

“Okay, okay. That’s… let’s just… let’s just start again, okay? We’ll try again. We’ll do better, talk to each other.”

“Okay. Yeah, let’s do that.”

The silence that descended wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it wasn’t completely terrible. Still, Tony desperately tried to think of some – not awful – way to break it.

“How… how much did Friday tell you?” Not a happy conversation topic but a necessary one. Best to have all the cards on the table if they were going to be able to move on somehow.

“Most of it, I guess. She showed me the footage from the invasion, from the first time you met and how much of an asshole he was to you.”

It was odd to hear his father defend him. “I said some shitty things myself.”

Howard scoffed. “He deserved it. Arrogant ass, who the hell did he think he was to say he was better than you?”

“Ok, who are you and what have you done with my father?” Tony regretted the words immediately. Dammit. Hadn’t he just said they should start over?

“Christ Tony, you act as if I never said anything nice about you.”

“You didn’t.” He very deliberately didn’t raise his voice. They could have a civilized conversation without yelling at each other. They had to.

“The hell I didn’t! I did!”

“No, you didn’t. Believe me, I would remember.”

His father looked at him with that lost expression again. “That’s not… I did say nice things about you, Tony, for fuck’s sake, why wouldn’t I? You’re a smart kid, smarted than me, and that’s saying something. I know I said it, how well you were doing in school. Hell, you got into college at 15!”

“Well, if you did, I wasn’t to me.”

That made Howard pause, apparently thinking it over. “Shit, maybe I didn’t. To you, I mean. Fuck. Fuck. Goddammit. I suck at this Tony.” He sat on one of the stools, letting his head fall on the table.

“Yeah, you kinda do.” Tony grabbed another chair and took a seat next to him. “Okay. So, let’s talk. Clear the air. Truth time.”

Howard didn’t look up, just waved a hand in a ‘go ahead’ gesture.

“Okay. So, if you were interested in the stuff I was doing, how come you never showed up for anything? Like my High School graduation.” He tried to keep his voice level, but that had stung. He understood that his father was a busy man and it wouldn’t be feasible for him to show up to every little thing, but his graduation should have merited some effort.

“I meant to, Tony.” Howard raised his head. He looked exhausted. “I was all ready to go but some last minute thing came up. I told your mom to go on ahead, I thought I could wrap it up quickly and still make it, but those goddamned assholes wouldn’t shut up.”

“You couldn’t have postponed it?” Tony knew that people could be demanding in business. He was well aware how much of a pain these last minute things could be. It was not by accident that he’d never showed up for things on time. He had, over the years, cultivated an image of unreliability specifically so he wouldn’t have to deal with that bullshit. If no one ever expected him to be responsible, he could blow things off and never offend anyone in particular. It had always been easier to let other people take care of things. First Obie and then Pepper. Tony Stark was known for his recklessness and cavalier attitude. And still SI did well, because people didn’t really care that he was flaky so long as he delivered. And he always delivered. Howard Stark, on the other hand, was a reliable businessman – and that was another reason for Tony to do the exact opposite – so he might not have had the option. As much as he might have wanted to be the priority in his dad’s life, adult Tony could understand that it wasn’t that simple. Maybe his dad could have tried harder – hell, he _should_ have tried harder – but maybe he had tried. Tony had new responsibilities now that he wasn’t sure he could ignore, even if he wanted to.

“I tried. I should have made it up to you, I know. I wanted to be there, Tony, I swear. I wasn’t partying or blowing you off. Shit just always happened.”

Tony thought back to that day, looking around waiting for his dad. His mom and Jarvis had been there, smiling at him proudly. Afterwards, when his dad never arrived, mom and Jarvis had told him that he had gotten caught up at work, but that he had wanted to come. He hadn’t believed them, he’d thought his father just couldn’t be bothered. He’d asked Obie later, wanting to confirm that his dad didn’t give a shit and Obie had said… dammit, he’d said he didn’t know about any meeting. At the time, Tony had had no reason to doubt Obie’s word, not when it aligned with what he already believed. Now, however, it was clear that Obie was a big fat liar. Had he wanted to keep him and Howard at odds? It made Tony easier to control if he was a mess with a ton of daddy issues, that was for sure. Whenever he’d been particularly difficult, Obie had reminded him that his father was this or that, had done things this way or the other, and that had always gotten Tony off his ass, if only to prove to himself that he could be just as good. “Fuck that back-stabbing manipulative bastard.”

“What?”

Oh, he’d said that aloud. “I was thinking about Obie.”

“Why? What did he do? I asked Friday but she wouldn’t tell me much.”

“He was selling our weapons to terrorists under the table.”

“What?!”

“And he tried to kill me. Three times. Nearly succeeded too.”

“What?!” Howard stood up so fast he knocked down the stool, mouth hanging open in shock. “That fucking son of a bitch!” He punched the table in frustration, hard, then cradled his hand with a wince. “Fuck! Oh god, are you all right?”

“I’m fine, dad, it was years ago. He’s dead now.”

“Good.” It was said with such venom and hate that Tony was taken a bit aback. There was fury in his dad’s eyes again and his face was getting red. Shit, not good.

“All right, dad, calm down. You don’t wanna give yourself a heart attack.”

Howard didn’t hear him. “Goddammit. Was everyone I trusted a fucking traitor?” Well, that was a legitimate question, wasn’t it? “What about Fury? I saw him in one of the videos.”

“Well, he doesn’t like me much, but he hasn’t tried to kill me, no. He did spy on me, though.”

“Oh, I’m going to have a word with him.” Howard wasn’t a particularly big guy, had never been a fighter, and he was 70 years old – hardly what one would consider threatening. Still, looking at him now, Tony could believe he could do some damage if he wanted. Not in a physical fight, certainly, but his dad was a smart guy, he could fight in other ways. Fury might just be in for a surprise. It warmed Tony up inside to know that his father was willing to fight for him, even if he got trounced (and even if it made him feel like a little kid telling other little kids that his dad could beat up their dads).

“Seriously, Tony, this is beyond fucked up.”

“I know. But it’s not worth giving yourself a coronary over, okay?”

Howard didn’t seem satisfied, but he nodded anyway. Then his hand touched the table and he hissed.

“Let me have a look,” Tony said, reaching out.

“It’s fine. I’ve had worse.”

“Better put some ice on it anyway.” Tony craned his neck out to the back of the workshop and called out. “Dum-E! Get me some ice. And please try not to break anything while you’re at it.” That last bit was probably useless, though.

His father looked over. “Who are you talking to?”

There was a crash followed by Dum-E’s apologetic beeps. Tony sighed. After another crash, Dum-E came over carrying an ice tray with a dirty rag on top of it. Well, it wasn’t an open wound, so it would be fine.

Tony took them from him and got a couple of ice cubes wrapped up in the rag. “Thanks. Now go clean up whatever you broke.” But Dum-E was watching his dad now, arm rotating to get a better angle, and ignored him. As usual.

“What’s this?” Howard took the rag with the ice and put it over his hand, studying Dum-E, who had come closer and was poking at him.

“Hey!” Tony warned his oldest bot. “Stop that.”

Dum-E looked from him to his dad and then back again, inclining his arm and letting out an inquisitive beep. He wasn’t used to people in the workshop other than Rhodey and Pepper. Well, Bruce, Vision and Peter now too.

“It looks like the robot you were working on, your thesis project.”

“Yeah, that’s him. Right, then, introductions. Dad, this is Dum-E. Dum-E, this is my dad. Be nice and please don’t embarrass me.” That one was probably going to be useless too.

Dum-E extended his claw for his approximation of a handshake and, to Tony’s surprise, Howard accepted it with his uninjured hand. Dum-E beeped excitedly and started circling around them, beeping madly and knocking things over.

“Dum-E, stop that. Settle down. Go clean up your mess, you can come over when you’re done.” The bot lowered his claw and gave a sad beep. “Don’t even try it, buddy. Go on, shoo. And please don’t break anything else.” With another sad beep and a pathetic air, Dum-E rolled over to the fridge an inch at a time, glancing backwards as if expecting to be recalled at any minute. Tony shook his head fondly. Dum-E was a menace, but Tony loved the little bastard anyway. “Stop that sad display and go do your job, you silly bucket of bolts.”

“Is it… does it understand?”

Tony turned back to his dad, having nearly forgotten he was there. “He’s an artificial intelligence. Well, a rudimentary one. First one I built, and not really very good. At intelligence, that is.” He was excellent company, though. His oldest friend save Rhodey.

“You couldn’t have given the poor thing a better name?”

That was not the kind of comment Tony would have expected from his dad. “I didn’t actually mean to call him that. I was kinda drunk when he was first activated and didn’t really know what I was saying. But he refused to be answer to anything else, so… He might not be very intelligent as such, but by god he is stubborn.”

Howard chuckled. “What’s he supposed to do?” Tony noted with approval that his dad had used the correct pronoun this time.

“He’s… well, he’s an arm on wheels. He’s supposed to be a helping hand, literally. Bring me stuff, hold things, that kind of thing. He’s not always very good at it, though. His motor control and spacial recognition aren’t as good as they could be and he’s a little too excitable at times.” There was another crash from Dum-E’s direction, just to prove Tony’s point.

“Why don’t you just fix it? The technical problems, I mean. Surely you have better technology now.”

Tony crossed his arms and glared a bit. “Just because he’s not perfect doesn’t mean he isn’t good enough.” Besides, Tony liked that Dum-E wasn’t perfect, that he was a bit clumsy and a bit silly. He was just fine as he was, and if there was a problem it sure as hell wasn’t the bot’s fault. It wouldn’t be fair to punish him for Tony’s shoddy work.

To his credit, Howard seemed to get the point – and the not-so-subtle dig at his shitty parenting – because he just nodded.

Dum-E came back with a coffee cup in his claw and offered it to Howard, who accepted it without hesitation.

“Don’t drink that,” Tony warned, when it looked as if his dad was about to do just that. “He sometimes gets confused and puts things he shouldn’t in it.”

Howard sniffed it and took a small tentative sip. “Tastes fine.”

“Oh, good then. It’s just better to check it first.” Dum-E gave them a happy beep and zoomed away. “Hey, don’t I get any?” Tony shouted after him, receiving a loud beep in return.

“It’s an amazing creation, Tony.” For the first time since he’d come in he started to really look around the workshop. His eyes lit up when he noticed the suit on the other table and he immediately went over to have a closer look, coffee forgotten. “Lord, look at this, it’s incredible.” He smiled like a kid in a candy store.

They spent the next couple of hours talking as Tony showed his father some of the suits and other things he’d designed over the years with Dum-E occasionally coming over to make a nuisance of himself. Howard was specially awed by the holographic projections (which were indeed awesome) and how easy they were to work with. “God, if I’d had this back then… You can re-work everything in seconds instead of having to re-draw all schematics by hand.”

“I’ll get you a tablet so you can play around with it. Friday, get a few delivered, ok?”

“Sure thing, Boss.”

“Thanks, son.”

Loathe as he was to mess up with their good mood, Tony had resolved to actually talk to his dad more, and he had to follow through with it. “So, how come you never let me in the workshop when I was a kid?” He was careful not to sound accusatory, though, just curious.

Howard sighed. “I used to. You’d sit in a corner putting things together. Then one day you decided to play with the blowtorch and almost set yourself on fire because I wasn’t paying attention. Your mom almost had my head for that, deservedly, sure. I couldn’t watch you and work at the same time and there were too many dangerous things lying around for it to be safe.”

Right. That made sense. “Why didn’t you just tell me that?”

“I did. I said it was too dangerous.”

Tony didn’t remember that, he just remembered not being allowed in, which he had taken to mean his dad just didn’t want him around.

“It’s like the time you wanted a blowtorch for Christmas or your birthday, which you obviously didn’t get. We told you it was too dangerous but you sulked and cried like we were being horrible.”

Huh. Tony remembered that too, being angry that he hadn’t gotten the gift he wanted, feeling it was unfair and that his dad didn’t love him. Thinking about it now, though, he couldn’t help but cringe a bit. Sure, 8 year-old him thought a blowtorch would be the coolest thing, but no parent in their right mind would ever agree to that. Jesus, he’d been a clueless brat.

“Sorry about that.”

His dad shrugged. “You were a kid, kids can’t really understand that kind of thing. We’d tell you not to do something because it was dangerous and you completely ignored it and did it anyway. And then got upset when you got in trouble.” There was a short pause before his dad continued. “I might have been less than understanding about it sometimes, especially when I was stressed out about something already.” Which was probably more often than not, in Tony’s somewhat biased view.

“Well, that’s… Okay, I guess.”

“I’m sorry I made you think I didn’t care. I was never that great with people.”

“Yeah, it’s ok, I get it.” It wasn’t really okay, though, but it was better. It was better to think his dad was a shitty father because he was bad with people than because he just didn’t give a shit. Howard was only human, after all, and human beings fuck up from time to time, sometimes spectacularly – just look at Rogers and his arrogance and stupidity. It wasn’t that he was evil –Tony might be angry but he didn’t believe that – but the end result was still a disaster. And maybe Tony had contributed to the problem by making anything with his dad about him when there were probably a lot of other factors he had never known anything about. They definitely needed to work on their communication skills.

“What’s happened to Fury?” Howard asked after another lull in the conversation.

“No idea. Last I saw him was a couple of years ago, after he was supposed to be dead. He’s probably holed up somewhere pulling strings behind the scenes.” Tony shrugged. “As long as he doesn’t show up here, he’s not my problem.”

“And what about this Ross guy that is going to trial?”

“Ah, that’s another fucking mess. Guy’s a complete bastard who hates enhanced people, especially Bruce. He wanted to use the Avengers for his own gain, though, to be honest, I’m not sure how he meant to do that. Anyway, he violated the Accords, not to mention a lot of human rights laws so now he’s being put through the ringer.”

“Why do you have to testify?”

“Well, since Rogers broke his buddies out of prison and Ross managed to cover his track a bit, I gotta tell everybody that they were actually there, and that Ross was going to send a death squad after them.”

At the mention of Rogers, Howard’s face had twisted in anger and now he was scowling and clenching his fists. “If they were in prison it is because they belonged there,” he said viciously. “I saw the fight at the airport, they nearly killed your team.”

Tony couldn’t exactly disagree with that. Still, Ross had no jurisdiction to do it himself. “True, but they should have gotten a trial first.”

“Boss, Mrs Stark is looking for Mr Stark.”

“Shit, what time is it?”

“It’s 7:30 am.”

Both Tony and Howard startled in surprise at that. Wonderful, another sleepless night.

“Damn, no wonder I feel like shit. Christ, being old is shit.”

That made Tony laugh. _Yep, it sure is_.

“You’d better go, dad. Get some sleep.”

“You too. Friday, please tell Maria I’ll be right there. Seriously, Tony, go to bed. And… We should… Talk some more later.”

“Yeah, fine. Tell mom I’ll see her at lunch, ok?

Howard nodded, getting up and stretching with a groan. “Jesus, I hate being old.”

“Well, it’s better than being dead.” Tony winced as the words left his mouth, but they were true.

Howard didn’t answer, just nodded and walked out, back to his apartment.

Tony looked around the workshop, lost in thought, until Friday reminded him that he should go to bed. Somewhat reluctant, Tony obeyed. There were still a lot of things to do and he couldn’t afford to be a tired mess. Being old really was a bitch.


	9. Returns

Maria had her arms crossed when Howard stumbled out of the elevator. “And just where were you at this ungodly hour?”

“I was talking to Tony.” The workshop really was amazing. Howard would love to explore it more when he wasn’t about to fall asleep at any second.

“In the middle of the night?”

“He was already awake, working.”

Maria did not look happy. Howard figured Tony would get an earful about his sleeping habits pretty soon.

“Let the boy be, Maria. He isn’t actually a boy anymore.”

“Neither are you.”

Well, he couldn’t argue with that. “Right. I’m going to bed. Tony said he’d be going too, so we’ll see you for lunch.” She glared at him all the way into the bedroom, but Howard knew his wife. She wasn’t really that upset. Hell, she was probably glad he and Tony had managed to spend hours together – just the two of them – without any yelling (well, Howard may have yelled a bit, but not _at_ Tony, which was a very important distinction).

He was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

*****

It felt like no time at all had passed when he woke up again.

“It’s almost noon, Howard, time to get up.”

Noon? Well, it wasn’t as if he had any pressing engagements – and wasn’t that wonderful? He showered, shaved and dressed without any hurry for a change.

“Dr Banner wants to talk to us about the test results,” Maria told him, handing him a cup of coffee. Bless her. “He’s on his way.”

Howard nodded and sat at the kitchen counter to enjoy his coffee. This new machine sure was something else.

Tony got out of the elevator with Banner, looking much better. Howard hadn’t really noticed last night how haggard he’d seemed, but the contrast was rather startling now.

“Morning, mom, dad.”

“It’s noon, honey,” Maria said reproachfully. Nevertheless she gave the kid a hug and a kiss, and a warm smile to Banner.

“Right. Good afternoon then. Bruce has news!”

They settled in the living room, Tony snagging himself some coffee and ignoring his mother’s disapproving look.

“You both seem to be in good health,” Banner said. “As far as I can tell, there are no ill effects from… whatever happened to you. But I’d like to keep monitoring you anyway, just in case.” They nodded. “When I say good health, however, I mean for your age. Mr Stark, you should probably cut down on alcohol if you don’t to damage your liver even more. It’s not critical yet, but it could be if you keep drinking.”

Right. His own doctor back home had told him that plenty of times – as had Maria and Jarvis. Now was a good time to actually start doing something about it. It wouldn’t do to be brought back to life only to throw it away by drinking too much. He nodded at Banner. “I’ll do that.”

“Friday, keep an eye on him,” Tony said. Howard scowled but kept quiet. Kid might have a point; a reminder would probably be helpful when he started to get antsy, as he usually did.

“And Mrs Stark, I’d recommend a vitamin supplement.”

Maria agreed, then turned to Tony. “Can I have a word with you, darling?”

“Uhm, sure mom.” By his expression, he knew he was about to get a lecture.

“Dr Banner, if you don’t mind, I have a few questions,” Howard said, both to give Maria and Tony some privacy and because he actually had things to ask.

Leaving the others in the living room, Howard and Banner relocated to the kitchen, where Howard took the opportunity for another cup of coffee.

“I understand Steve Rogers is alive, well and a complete asshole.”

Banner straightened, looking surprised. “How do you know that?”

Howard waved a hand, a little annoyed that apparently everyone thought he should be kept in the dark about important things concerning his son. “Friday told me everything. What I want to know is what is being done about it.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“I mean about the fact that that piece of shit nearly killed my son with my fucking shield.” He tried to keep his temper in check, but just thinking about it made him want to hit something (someone) again. He couldn’t believe how wrong he’d been about people.

Banner stared at him for a moment, measuring him. “As far as I know they are fugitives. So far they have kept quiet so no further action has been taken other than issuing arrest warrants for all of them. If and when they resurface… well, then we’ll see.”

“You really don’t know where they are? You haven’t tried to find them?” How could they just let it go? Not just for Tony, but for everyone Steve had hurt and betrayed.

“Not as far as I know. Tony’s had his hands full with the Accords and sorting out the mess they left behind. Again.” The last word was said more quietly, in a rather subdued tone. There was a story there. “Unless they start causing trouble again, we have other things to worry about.”

Howard didn’t like it. He didn’t like that Steve could just get away with it, just like that. Barnes too. Brainwashed or not, he’d killed Howard and Maria, made Tony an orphan. Left him alone with fucking Obie, who turned out to be another fucking murderous traitor. Fuck them all.

“I have to admit, this is not what we were expecting from you.”

There was no use getting upset about it, was there? It was Howard’s own fault for being such a fucking awful father – which apparently everyone knew. It still hurt. “Did you all really think I wouldn’t care that that bastard tried to kill my son?”

“We know he was your friend.”

“Yeah, he was. Or at least that’s what I thought. Until he decided to be an asshole and try to kill my son. He can rot in hell now for all I care.” God, Howard wanted to talk to him, to ask him what the hell he’d been thinking. To ask how he could have betrayed them all like that. Christ, Peggy would be disgusted. And Erskine, so sure he’d chosen a good guy, someone who wouldn’t abuse the power he was given. He’d be appalled at what Steve had used his gift for.

“Have you talked to Tony about this?”

“Yeah, we talked last night.”

“Well, that’s good.”

“There was something else I wanted to ask you. About Tony.”

Banner kept a guarded expression. At least his friends cared about the kid. “What it is?”

“Is he all right? Friday told me he was badly hurt.” No wonder. Two fucking super soldiers against one regular human? Even with the suit, there was normal flesh and blood underneath it. Fucking bastards.

“He’s recovered well, for the most part. I’m afraid I can’t tell you more than that. Confidentiality and all.”

“I understand.” He didn’t like it, though. He had a right to know about his own son’s health, didn’t he? Even if Tony wasn’t a child anymore.

“You can always talk to Tony directly.”

“Yeah, we’re working on that,” Howard said with a self-deprecating smile. “Thanks for taking care of him.”

They went back to the living room. Tony looked faintly embarrassed and immediately launched into a new topic, most likely to avoid any more lectures.

“So, guys, it’s lunch time. We should do that then, have lunch. Like, all of us. Team lunch! Right, Bruce? Fri, call everyone up to the penthouse and get us some lunch.”

“Sure thing, Boss.” It might have been Howard’s imagination, but Friday sounded amused.

Maria gave Tony an indulging smile. “That sounds lovely, dear. I’d like to get to know your friends better.”

So they went up to Tony’s apartment, joined by Rhodes and Vision. Vision, as an android, did not actually eat, but he was invited to team meals anyway, Tony explained, because it was about socializing as much as eating.

The food was excellent and the atmosphere, though initially a little strained, soon became more comfortable, thanks to Maria’s formidable hosting skills. She had always been good at putting people at ease and managing conflicts before they escalated (except when they involved Howard and Tony – Howard would admit they were both stubborn and willful). Since there was no reason for conflicts now, as Howard and Tony had come to an understanding, it was only the awkwardness of the situation. Howard couldn’t help but be curious about what the others had heard about him and Maria from Tony, aside from Howard’s shitty parenting.

The conversation was kept to light non-controversial topics and current events. Tony told them a bit about the work the Stark Foundation (now the Maria Stark Foundation) had done over the last 30 years, and some of the social-political changes in the world. Vision gave his perspective as a non-human who was often baffled by human behavior, such as something called memes, which prompted the others to explain the Internet and all its capabilities. Howard found it utterly fascinating and asked lots of questions, from the practical to the theoretical. Rhodes told them a few funny stories from his and Tony’s MIT days and later. It made Howard rather sad that he’d missed so much, both in the world and in his son’s life. He promised himself again that he would not waste this opportunity.

All in all, it was a very pleasant afternoon, though it didn’t make him forget the crappy revelations he’d had.

*****

They had adjourned to the living room and were discussing important technological advancements of the last 30 years when Friday alerted them that Ms van Dyne had just arrived in the Tower.

“Right, yeah. Thanks, Fri,” Tony said. “Okay, so I guess I should go talk to her and explain…” He gestured at Howard and Maria.

“I’m come with you,” Bruce offered.

“Cool.”

Vision and Rhodes stayed and they continued the conversation, though Howard was a bit worried about what Pym’s girl would say. He realized that he didn’t know anything about her aside from who her parents were and that she had followed in her mom’s footsteps with the Wasp suit.

Tony and Bruce returned a little over half an hour later with her. She was dressed in a business suit and Howard was struck by how much she resembled her mother.

“So, Hope, these are my parents, Howard and Maria. Mom, dad, this is Hope.”

Maria stood with a smile. “My goodness, you’ve grown. You were a tiny thing when we last saw you, look at you now. You look just like your mother.” She walked up to the other woman and kissed her cheek.

Hope smiled back. “It’s very nice to see you again, Mrs Stark, though I have to confess I don’t quite remember meeting you before.”

“Well, you were… I don’t know… only four or five at the time.”

“Did you know my mother well?” There was a certain amount of longing in her voice that Howard found odd. Hadn’t Hank told her about her mom?

“Not well, but we were acquaintances. We were often at the same events.”

Hope smiled again. She turned to him and Howard stood. He had once been considered charming, though in the last few years he’d sort of lost that a little (too much booze and bitterness, perhaps). Still, he gave her his best smile. Hank might be an asshole, but that wasn’t his daughter’s fault. Plus, Tony liked her, so she couldn’t be that bad. He shook her hand. “It’s a pleasure, Ms van Dyne.” It was odd, though, that she went by her mother’s name and not Hank’s. Tony had said they didn’t get along, but damn, that had to hurt, poor bastard. Howard could imagine how awful he’d feel if he’d come into this future and found that Tony was going by his mom’s name. Not that Maria wasn’t great, but, well…

“Hope, please.”

“Hope.” He hesitated, then figured he might as well address the elephant in the room. “How is your father?”

Hope snorted, shaking her head. “Pretty much the same guy you remember, I’m sure. We don’t really talk much.”

A part of Howard was somewhat glad that he wasn’t the only shitty father around, but the biggest part felt sorry for Hank. All these years and he hadn’t found a way to sort things out with his kid? It was sad. As much as Howard disliked Hank, he knew the other wasn’t a bad person (no more than Howard, at least), just… well, a bastard (and yeah, he could hear the pot kettle comment Maria would have undoubtedly made at that). In truth, the two of them probably had more in common than either would want to admit. Maybe he should call a truce with the guy; after all, their kids were working together now, and they were far too old for this ridiculous grudge-holding (not that Howard held a grudge – well, not much).

“Well, it would certainly be interesting to talk to him again.”

“Oh, I’m sure he’d love that,” she said, voice dripping with sarcasm. It made Howard chuckle. Girl had spirit, that was for sure, just like Janet. Good for her she had more of her mother than her father.

“Have a seat, dear,” Maria said, taking charge. “Tony, honey, go get Hope something to drink, she must be tired.”

“Oh, there’s no need, Mrs Stark.”

“Nonsense.” Maria made a little shooing motion at Tony, who seemed more amused than put out at his mom ordering him around. Other rich people had servants for every little thing, Howard knew, but he had never liked having too many people working at the house (Jarvis, a cook for special occasions, a few cleaning workers and someone to tend the garden from time to time, all under Jarvis’s supervision), so they were all used to getting things themselves. From what Howard could see, Tony was the same – he’d yet to see a single employee around. Tony either did things himself or had his robots/AI do it. Ingenious, really, getting the job done without having to deal with people.

Tony returned with juice and snacks for everyone.

“How was the meeting with the Accords committee, Ms van Dyne?” Vision asked once they had all gotten their drinks and snacks.

“Good. Ross’s trial is a good reminder that abusing the Accords is not a good idea, so everyone is on their best behavior, being very diplomatic and very public about their contempt for Ross.”

“Nothing like a common enemy to hate,” Rhodes said.

“Nothing like having someone terrible on display to make people feel superior by comparison,” Tony added.

“Who exactly is this Ross person and what did he do?” Maria asked.

It was a disturbing story, Howard thought, though he couldn’t really say he was surprised. He’d known plenty of Generals, and while some were nice enough, some were downright awful people who would not hesitate to trample over anyone if it got them what they wanted. He remembered one in particular who had wanted to order a nuclear strike in Vietnam to “end the war quickly and show them who’s boss”, as he’d put it. Fortunately everyone else had better sense and had ignored him.

“And you’re going to testify against him?”

Tony nodded. “Yep. Tomorrow. Got a call from the Prosecution’s office reminding me earlier. I’m kinda looking forward to it.” He turned to Banner. “You know, once Ross is in jail, maybe you should try contacting Betty again.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea, really.”

“Maybe not to re-start anything, but… some closure or something.”

“Maybe.”

“Sorry, who’s Betty?” Hope asked. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

The story Banner told them about how Ross used his own daughter in his pursuit of Banner (and the Hulk) was horrifying. _Jesus fucking Christ_ , Howard thought, _this guy has me beat by a mile for the worst father ever award. Next to him I might as well be father of the year_. Like Tony had said, nothing like having a horrible example to compare oneself favorably to.

Banner excused himself soon afterwards, as he had some lab work to get back to. Vision went with him, citing some research he was doing, and Rhodes also had other obligations, leaving just Howard, Maria, Tony and Hope.

“I hope you don’t mind, Mrs Stark,” Hope said, “but would you tell me about my mother?”

“Hasn’t your father talked to you about her?”

Hope shook her head. “No, he never wanted to talk about it. I didn’t even know how she’d really died until a couple of years ago.”

“What do you mean, how she really died? Wasn’t it a plane accident?”

“No,” Howard said. He remembered Hank’s face when he got back from that mission without Janet. He had stared into space quietly for a long time.

“I guess you know the truth.”

He nodded. “I wasn’t directly involved with SHIELD then anymore, I mostly worked as a consultant and technology advisor, but I heard what happened. I’m very sorry for your loss, Janet was a good person.”

“What are you talking about?” Maria asked him. “What did Janet have to do with SHIELD?”

Maria had never known much about SHIELD, beyond its existence. It was confidential, for one thing, and for another Howard had never wanted to get his dealing with SHIELD too close to his family. Not that it had done Tony (or Maria) much good in the end, apparently.

“My mother and father worked with SHIELD,” Hope explained, “though I only found out about dad when I started working at Pym Technologies and he showed me the Ant-Man suit. He didn’t say mom had a suit too.”

“Suit?” Right, Maria didn’t know about that either.

“It’s something Hank invented, a suit that can shrink a person to the size of an ant. Janet had one too, with wings, they called her Wasp. They did missions for SHIELD, mostly to do with infiltration and retrieval of… important things. There was… one of the missions ended badly. Janet didn’t make it. Hank was a mess, he took the suit and refused to have anything to do with us anymore, became even more paranoid than he already was.”

“That’s awful. And your father didn’t tell you?”

“No. Not that he had much opportunity, since I was away at boarding school most of the time.” Hope’s voice had the same bitterness as Tony’s when he had talked about school a few days earlier. Howard couldn’t help wince a bit. Hank had probably been trying to protect Hope, just as Howard himself had – and he’d never told Tony anything about SHIELD either – but it was obvious that Hope hadn’t appreciated it (neither had Tony, for that matter). Parenting was really hard.

“Sometimes it’s just difficult to talk about painful things,” Maria said diplomatically.

Hope sighed. “I know that, but… she was my mother. And I don’t know anything about her.”

“I understand. Well, Janet was very nice, and she talked about you a lot. She was very proud.”

As Maria told Hope stories about her mom, Howard thought about distance and things unsaid. He should have made more of an effort to connect with Tony, even if it was hard. He’d been sort of waiting for when Tony grew up – because he was terrible with children – and in the end he’d had no time at all. He should have tried harder to explain himself, even if Tony didn’t understand it right away. He should have made more time for the boy, made him more of a priority instead of assuming there would be a next time to make up for it. Hell, he should have just told his son he was proud of him instead of assuming Tony knew ( _how the fuck would he know if you never told him, Howard?_ ).

Tony came over to sit next to him. “You ok, dad?”

“Yeah, just thinking.” About exactly how much he’d fucked up. And now he wanted a drink, dammit.

“Might want to stop doing that.”

“What?”

“Doesn’t look as if they’re happy thoughts.”

No, they weren’t. But they were necessary. Howard was an engineer, he knew the only way to fix a problem was to figure out where and how it had gone wrong. He had always known there were problems; now he could see clearly what they were. The trick was to use that knowledge to actually make things better, though. He sighed internally. Machines were so much easier than people…

“Dad?”

“Sorry, got distracted.” Hope seemed happy to be hearing things about her mother, Howard noted. Had Hank really not told her anything?

He looked at Tony. “I… I want things to be better between us, son, but I’m not sure how to do that.”

“It’s okay, dad. I think we’re doing well enough, all things considered. I’m really glad to have you guys back.”

“Any theories about that, by the way?”

“Oh, right, I didn’t tell you. We’ve come up with something, actually.”

Alien scepters that could mind control people seemed insane, Howard thought, but considering he was sitting here after being dead for 30 years, anything was possible. The future was full of impossibilities apparently.

“We’re still trying to track the guy down, but no luck so far. He’ll turn up eventually, I’m sure. Bad guys have a bad habit of being annoying and inconvenient, not to mention persistent, so…”

“And you don’t know why he attacked you in the first place?”

“Other than I’m a well known target? Not a clue. Don’t even know if the guy is human or another crazy alien hell bent on world domination.”

“What about that Thor character?” Howard would have a few things to say to that asshole if he ever saw him.

“What about him? He’s fucked off home, or wherever it is he spends his days, as usual. He’s not exactly reliable.”

He’s not much of an ally either, Howard thought, remembering the clip Friday had shown him. “What’s his deal anyway? Why was he even here in the first place?”

“Ah, that’s a long story. And I suspect we weren’t told everything. Actually, we weren’t really told much at all. I guess he didn’t see the need to educate us poor stupid and primitive humans.” Howard noted the bitterness in his son’s voice, and it only made him angrier. Who the hell was this Thor bastard to think he was in any way superior to humans? To Tony. He certainly didn’t look all that smart. And who had ended the battled and saved everyone? Yeah, Tony, so fuck that dick.

Maria called his name then, asking him to confirm some information for Hope, which diverted the conversation with Tony for a bit. He was just about to get back to it when Friday spoke up.

“Boss, we’ve got a sighting of the man with the magical artifact.”

“Shit, where?”

“He seems to be fighting with some strangely dressed people in Greenwich Village.”

“Call everyone. And let the mayor know we’ve about to get involved.”

“Done, Boss.”

“I’ll go suit up,” Hope said.

“Actually, Hope, I’d like you to stay here and…” He trailed off with a not-very-subtle look at Howard and Maria. Hell no, they did not need a babysitter, thank you very much.

“We don’t need protection, Tony,” Howard protested.

“Really? And if that guy shows up here to undo what he did, you’re gonna do what, exactly? Ask him nicely not to? Glare disapprovingly at him?” He turned to Hope. “Hope?”

She nodded. Howard looked at Maria to see what she thought about it.

“Who are you talking about? Why would anyone want to attack us? Nobody even knows we’re here.”

“I don’t have to time to explain, mom, sorry. I gotta go. Hope can fill you in. Please just stay here.”

Tony gave them each a quick hug and hurried out. Hope excused herself to go get the Wasp suit. “I’ll be right back, Mr and Mrs Stark.”

“Howard, what’s going on?”

Howard was still annoyed at the situation. He had always hated waiting on the sidelines twiddling his thumbs. Still, he understood there was nothing he could do here, and he didn’t want to put himself in harm’s way. He might have been foolish enough for that once, but that was back when he was young and reckless; he was 70 years old now, hardly a match for some magic-wielding villain. With a sigh, he told Maria Tony’s theory of how they’d gotten here, and this mysterious person who might have been the cause of it.

“Friday, could you show us what’s going on?”

“There are no news crew at the site of the altercation at the moment, Mr Stark. CCTV footage is insufficient to get a clear picture of the situation.”

“Does that mean you don’t know?” Howard questioned, beginning to get apprehensive.

“It means that I cannot easily show you. I am present in the suit with Boss, so of course I know what’s going on.” She sounded almost insulted, and that made Howard feel better. Trust Tony to make a proud AI.

“So you can tell us, even if you can’t show us?” Maria asked.

“No, you should focus on helping Tony,” Howard said.

“I am perfectly capable of doing both at once,” Friday responded with the same insulted air. “My processing capacity is excellent.” It was odd that she had an Irish accent, Howard thought. He had noticed if before, but hadn’t really given it much thought – he’d had other things on his mind. Now, however, he wasn’t sure he wanted to think too much about Tony battling some magic person. He could still see those alien creatures from the videos Friday had shown him. Damn, that must have been terrifying. Could this guy, whoever he was, have anything to do with those aliens?

Hope returned, and Howard distracted himself with looking over the suit and asking some questions about it, even if she dodged most of them.

“Friday, any news?” Maria asked after several minutes had passed.

“The people who had been fighting against the target seem to be on our side. One of them seems to be Dr Strange. It is unclear yet what the target’s goal is.”

“Who is Dr Strange?”

It was Hope who answered. “He used to be a neurosurgeon. He had an accident which ended his career and apparently learned sorcery while looking for a cure for himself. I met with him once a little while ago. He declined our invitation to join the Avengers.”

“So humans can do magic too?” Howard had thought that was an alien thing.

“Seems so, yes. I don’t really know much about it, and Strange was very reticent in sharing information. We’ve been meaning to talk to him again, establish some cooperation, even if he prefers to do his own thing, but it seems there’s always something that needs our attention.”

“Ms van Dyne,” Friday said, voice filled with fear. “I’ve lost contact with Boss.”

_Shit._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the cliffhanger. Next chapter on Monday.


	10. Answers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advance about the ridiculous villain (more of a plot device, really). I tried to make it funny at least, don't know how successful I was. Let me know what you think.

Vision, Rhodey and Bruce were waiting for Tony on the roof. Tony stood still while the Mark 56 assembled around him then approached his friends and teammates.

“So, Loki wannabe is back. We need to get his glowstick and him, if possible.”

“I’m not sure I can help much, Tony.” Bruce was always worried about letting the big guy out in the city. It was silly, in Tony’s (excellent) opinion. The Hulk wasn’t a mindless beast, despite popular belief; he could take orders and only go after the correct targets. His sheer size and strength made him more likely to destroy things, but he didn’t hurt people on purpose (unless those people were shooting at him, in which case he was rather justified in doing so). Tony had been trying to convince Bruce of that pretty much since they’d met with little success so far.

“Fine, then, stay on the comms and guard the Tower in case the guy turns up here. Hope is staying with mom and dad.” It would probably be better to keep Bruce here anyway – nothing like a giant green bodyguard to protect his parents.

With that decided, Tony, Rhodey and Vision took to the air (it was so practical to have a team that could fly on their own). “How’s it going, Fri?”

“Fight’s still in progress, Boss. The police have been notified to clear the area. It doesn’t seem as if the target is particularly interested in civilians.”

“Good. Last thing we need is another super-powered lunatic going on a rampage.”

It was a short flight to the fighting site. Tony took a few moments to speak to the police officer in charge of securing the scene before getting into the fray, Rhodey and Vision at his back.

Glowsticky was waving his hand around doing spells, or whatever the hell that was, while two guys dressed in weird clothes were defending themselves. As he seemed to have the upper hand, Tony blasted Unknown Villain (damn, he needed a name for the guy), making the man stagger back and giving the others a chance to regroup. Villain waved his glowstick around, shooting an energy beam at the others and the Avengers. Tony, Rhodey and Vision flew out of the way, but the other guys weren’t able to dodge and got knocked over. Rhodey tried a shot but Villain blocked it with some kind of magic shield, retaliating quickly. Damn, the guy had been training since last time – he certainly seemed better prepared.

Another guy in weird clothes and a flowy red cape (what was it with people and capes? Hadn’t they watched _The Incredibles_? Capes were a bad idea) joined them and threw some odd-looking contraption at Glowsticky, who dodged it just in time. He aimed his scepter again and tried to fire at the guy in the cape (Doctor Strange, Friday reminded him. Right, the new hero on the scene, the one who claimed to be a sorcerer), but Vision tackled him to the ground. They struggled, Vision trying to get him pinned down while the man tried to reach the glowstick he’d dropped. Tony stepped forward to kick it away (he didn’t want to risk blasting the thing, god only knew what that would do), but the man was faster and got his hand wrapped around it. Vision reached out to get it back and everything went white when he touched it. Tony and everyone else were thrown backwards.

It took a few moments for him to get his bearings again. Fuck, he hated magic.

“Rhodey? Viz? You guys okay?”

Rhodey was lying motionless on the ground, the light of the Arc Reactor on his chest dimmed and flickering. Tony stumbled in his direction, heart in his throat. _Oh, god, please let him be okay_.

“Rhodey? Rhodey, wake up, buddy. Come on.” He fumbled with the emergency release for the faceplate, panic surging, remembering watching Rhodey fall, fall from the sky in a dead suit. _Oh god, I’m not gonna make it, he’s gonna crash, oh god Rhodey_ …

“Tony! Tony, breathe. I’m okay.”

 _Oh fuck_. Tony got his breathing back under control with an effort. _Oh thank god, Rhodey’s fine_. He helped his friend sit up, but War Machine wasn’t moving very well.

“It’s fine, I’m fine, go help Vision.”

Turning around, Tony saw that Vision was also slumped over next to Glowsticky. They both appeared to be unconscious. Strange and his buddies were also passed out, though the cape was moving, looking as if it was trying to shake Strange awake. What the hell? The cape was alive? And again, he hated magic. Nothing made any sense when there was magic involved, and Tony liked his laws of physics intact, thank you very much.

Fortunately his own suit was still functioning properly. After Siberia, he had completely redesigned the suit to be less reliant on the Arc Reactor on the chest piece, to have multiple back-ups and power sources so he wouldn’t be left stranded in the middle of fucking nowhere ever again. Plus he’s reinforced and shielded the whole thing.

He went to Vision first, though it was kind of hard to tell if he was okay as he had no heartbeat or breathing to check.

“Viz? Viz, come on, up and at’em.” He shook the android as gently as possible with no response. Shit. Glowsticky had a pulse and was breathing, so Tony wasn’t too worried. Still, he took the scepter and set it further away, just in case Villain came to unexpectedly. It did look a lot like Loki’s scepter, only with a more brownish glow instead of blue.

Rhodey had managed to get out of the suit and was checking on Strange and the others. That weird cape thing detached itself from Strange and flew over to where Tony was trying to get Vision sitting up. It hovered, looking weirdly uncertain – it was a freaking _cape_ , for fuck’s sake – then cautiously approached the scepter.

“Ah ah, leave that alone,” Tony warned. He was talking to a cape. Wonderful. And the cape obeyed, turning back to him and attaching itself to Vision to help pull him up. Right. Sentient and surprisingly helpful cape, Tony could go with that. “Hmm, thanks.” It (was it an it? or he? or she? did sentient capes have gender?) kept Vision upright somehow (well, magic cape) so Tony stepped out of the suit.

“Boss! Boss, are you all right? Boss?” Friday said just as the suit reassembled itself.

“I’m fine, Friday.”

“I lost contact. The connection was cut.”

Huh. That power surge must have done something. “I’m fine, Fri, no injuries.” Tony looked at the glowstick and carefully picked it up. He couldn’t help remember the last time he’d held a magical artifact, back in that Hydra base in Sokovia. It had taken him months to figure out that the vision he’d seen then was not his PSTD playing tricks on him, but Maximoff purposefully messing with his mind. The overwhelming terror and dread he’d felt had been his, yes, but amplified a hundred times. It was no wonder he’d been near manic to get Ultron up and running.

“Tony?”

Rhodey’s voice brought him back to the present. His friend was eyeing the scepter with trepidation, and Tony couldn’t blame him. He didn’t want to be near this thing, but if it had brought his parents back to life somehow, he needed to understand how it worked.

The cape kinda handed Vision over to Rhodey before it went back to Strange. The look on Rhodey’s face was pretty priceless, and Tony would have laughed if he didn’t have other things to worry about.

“Fri, take Vision back to the Tower and monitor him.” Vision had never really been unconscious before and Tony didn’t know what to do about it. They should probably do some tests later and figure out some kind of protocol to deal with potential injuries/damages to the android, because right now Tony had squat. “And alert Bruce.”

Once they had flown away, Tony walked over to Strange, leaving Rhodey to deal with the authorities, who were approaching now that the battle seemed to be over.

The cape was still trying unsuccessfully to rouse Strange, and it turned to him pleadingly. Or at least that was how Tony interpreted it, it was hard to tell with a creature (being? thing? what was it?) that had no face and made no sound (Tony was used to the bots, who had no face either, but at least they could vocalize a little, and they had a certain range of movement that could be a bit human-like, with some imaginative effort). “I’m sure he’ll be fine,” he told it.

To prove his point, Strange groaned and shifted a bit. The cape immediately draped itself around him like a blanket (Tony had to admit that he liked the thing, it was kinda cute).

“Strange?”

“Ugh.” He sat up, the cape changing position to help support him, and looked at Tony suspiciously. “Stark.”

“Hi there. How are you feeling? I love your cape, by the way.”

“It’s a _cloak_.”

“Whatever. You back with us yet?”

“Obviously.” He turned to check on his friends, but they were still out. “What happened?”

“No idea. Glowsticky’s glowstick did something, we all lost consciousness, including him.”

“You should not have that,” he said, pointing at the scepter Tony was still holding.

“Yeah, well, I’m not exactly happy about it, you know. I hate magic. But for now I’m gonna hold on to it.”

Strange didn’t seem convinced. Tony offered the hand not holding the scepter to help the man up, but Strange shook his head and got up on his own – well, the _cloak_ probably helped.

“Help me get my friends inside.”

Tony did as he was told, and took one guy in a fireman’s carry while Strange took the other. Together they walked up to a building a little ways up the street from where they were and went in. The place was huge, with grand staircases and lots of glass displays with weird stuff in it. There were also a lot of books. It had a bit of a Hogwarts feel to it, and Tony wanted to explore it all. Unfortunately, now was not the time. He was definitely coming back for a visit later, he’d been meaning to speak to Strange in person for a while anyway.

They set the guys down in some kind of infirmary area and left them to rest.

“Please put the scepter down. We don’t want to accidentally destroy anything,” Strange said once they were back in the main entrance.

Tony was going to disagree, but… well, he’d learned his lesson of not messing with alien artifacts. He put it on a table carefully. “Do you know what it is?”

“Not yet, but I’m sure I can figure it out.”

Tony rolled his eyes a little. “Great. Get to it then.”

“Perhaps we should secure the person who had it first.”

“Rhodey’s on it.” Strange raised an eyebrow. “Fine, come with me then. I don’t trust you alone with that thing.” These days Tony didn’t trust many people, never mind strangers (ha).

Loki wannabe was still lying where they’d left him. Strange gestured for Tony to take him while he got his weird contraption from where it had fallen earlier. Rhodey joined them and the three of them went back to Strange’s place together. When it looked like the guy was beginning to stir, Strange motioned for Tony to release him and activated the thing he’d retrieved. It looked like a medieval torture device, but whatever, it got the job done. Guy wasn’t going anywhere soon. And despite its appearance, it didn’t seem to actually harm him any.

After removing the bit in front of his mouth, Strange locked eyes with Glowsticky. “Who are you? Where did you get the scepter?”

“You will all die.”

 _Oh, how original_ , Tony thought. “No shit, Sherlock. Now answer the question.”

“When the Master comes, you will all die. Only his chosen ones will survive.”

“Seriously? Did you pick that line out of a movie? ‘Cause I’ve only heard it about a million times before. And who is this Master?” God saved him from cliché villains. Couldn’t he get an original one for a change? It was all revenge this, world domination that – _good lord_.

“You will get nothing from me.”

“Fine, whatever. We’ll just chuck you in prison then. I have more important things to do anyway.” He started to walk away, signaling Rhodey and Strange to follow him. Strange frowned, obviously not getting the plan, until the cloak tugged at him and got him moving. God, Tony loved that cloak.

They had barely left the room when the guy caved. “Wait! You can’t just leave me here like this!”

Tony smiled to himself and turned back. “Why not? If you’re not gonna tell us anything useful we have no reason to talk to you. Do you have any idea how much crap I’ve got on my plate right now? Do you really think I’m gonna waste a second more on you?” He waved a dismissive hand, and made as if to leave.

“The Master will kill you first, for destroying his army.”

Oh, bad guys were so predictable. They always wanted to gloat.

But, shit, that was not good. “And how is he going to do that, without his army?”

“You think that was all he had? He has other followers.”

“Like you? Must be scrapping the bottom of the barrel there.” The man snarled at that. “You’ve done exactly zip here. And we now have your glowstick.” Tony gave the guy his most obnoxious smile and watched in amusement as he tried to get out of the thing holding him in place, glaring murder. It seemed pretty obvious that his parents’ resurrection had not been part of the plan. Guy didn’t even seem to be aware of it. If he was, surely he would use it as a bargaining chip, as a threat.

“Once he has all the Infinity Stones you won’t be smiling anymore.”

Oh, hell, those damn things again. Thor had talked about them, but as usual was less than forthcoming with information.

“And how will he get those stones? Through you? Back luck there.”

Again the guy growled angrily. “Your perversion will be the first to die. He will rip out the stone from it.”

Vision. Right. So Vision might have been the target of the attack on the Tower, not Tony. Too bad for Glowsticky that Vision hadn’t been at there at the time, and had only arrived after the guy had left. “Again, how is he going to do that? And who is this Master anyway?”

“The most powerful being in the universe.” His voice had that sickly fanaticism that Tony just loved. Wasn’t Hydra enough? Now they had intergalactic fanatics too?

“And does he have a name?”

“Like I’m gonna say it to the likes of _you_ ,” he replied with contempt.

“Right, so you don’t know either, gotcha. How about your name? Do you know that?”

“I am Aemon the Great.”

It was a real effort not to laugh in the guy’s face. _Oh my god, is he for real? Aemon The Great?_ Did he get that from _Game of Thrones_? Behind him, Rhodey and Strange weren’t quite so successful in hiding their opinion of that ridiculous name, which only made Aemon the Great ( _oh god, what is wrong with people?_ ) angrier.

“How did you get the scepter?” Tony asked, trying to get the interrogation back on track.

“It was given to me, to complete the mission.”

“You mean the one you botched?” Aemon twitched. It was so very easy to rattle this guy, Tony barely had to try. Honestly, villains just weren’t the same these days. “Who gave it to you?”

“You’re all gonna die.”

 _Oh, we’re back to that again_. “So, the mission was to get the gem from Vision? Is that it?”

“And to kill _you_ , Stark.”

“Oh, lovely, so you fucked up two things instead of just one. Congrats.”

There was a lot of cursing at that point, which Tony tuned out. This Master was likely the one behind the Chitauri attack then. Tony had always suspected it couldn’t be just Loki. The scepter wasn’t Asgardian, for one thing, and for another that plan had been complete crap. Thor had told them how intelligent Loki was supposed to be and yet didn’t seem to realize that, for a supposed smart guy, Loki’s whole plan was ridiculous. There had to be more to it. Too bad Loki was dead, so they couldn’t ask him about it. And this guy probably didn’t know much either. A lowly minion, nothing more, likely given the task because he was expandable.

“Well, it’s been lovely and all, but I have things to do.” Let him stew for a bit, he might be more cooperative after some alone time.

They left Aemon the Great (that was never _not_ going to be funny) ranting and raving about whatever and Strange went to check on his friends.

Tony took out his phone to get an update on Vision. “Hey, Fri, how’s things? Vision up and about yet?”

“He is, Boss. Also, Mr and Mrs Stark have been asking about you. I might have panicked a little when we lost contact.”

“Tell them I’m fine, we got the guy.”

“Mrs Stark is insisting on speaking to you herself.”

Rhodey sniggered at him, so Tony gave him the finger. It was nice to have his mom back and worried about him, but they would have to have a talk about this. What would it do to his tough guy reputation if he had to call his mom after every mission? (He was kidding, he would be more than happy to call his mom after every mission if it meant he _had_ a mom to call.)

“All right, put her on.”

“Tony! Are you okay? Friday said –”

He decided to interrupt before there was any more panic. There had been enough panic already. “Mom, I’m fine. The suit’s comm went dead for a bit, nothing serious. I’m perfectly fine, not a scratch, I promise.”

“Friday brought Vision back, said he was unconscious. How can a robot even be unconscious?” That was his dad. Great, the whole family was freaking out.

“That’s a good question, dad, we’ll be looking into it later, trust me. He’s okay now, though, right?”

It was Friday who answered. “Yes, Boss, Dr Banner is with him. Would you like to speak to them?”

“It’s okay, it can keep for now. Right, gotta go, still got some stuff to take care of here.”

“All right, honey. You’re sure you’re okay?”

“Yes, mom, I’m sure. Love you, bye.” He hung up before she could get started again.

“That’s funny, I thought your parents were dead. Unless it’s some weird kink, in which case I don’t want to know about it.”

Tony whirled around to see Strange leaning against the door. Shit. Couldn’t a person have a private conversation anymore without nosy people eavesdropping? Though, yes, it had been kinda dumb to have that talk here. Totally his bad, he was still getting used to this having parents again thing.

He wasn’t sure he trusted Strange, but he did seem to be an expert on magical things and might be the only one who could give him some concrete answers about this whole magical resurrection thing.

“Okay, so that’s a complicated story.”

“Well, I’m all ears.”

“It’s also a bit of a long story, and it’s kinda late, so can we talk later? You can come to the Tower tomorrow. I’d actually like your expertise on… this thing.” He pointed it at the scepter, still on the table where he’d left it. “How are your friends, by the way?”

“Awake, guarding the prisoner. They’re fine. And yes, I will come by tomorrow for that talk.”

“Great. Excellent. Make it afternoon, I’ll probably be in court all day for Ross’s trial. Can you keep Mr The Great until then? ‘Cause moving him in that thing would probably not be comfortable for him.”

“We will keep an eye on him. Rogue sorcerers are our jurisdiction, after all.”

“Cool. We’ll just be going then. Awesome place, by the way. And I love your cloak. What on Earth is it anyway?”

“This is the Cloak of Levitation. It is an ancient magical relic.” The cloak fluffed itself up at that and made a little bow with its lapels. It was adorable, Tony was totally in love.

“Awesome. See you tomorrow then.” He picked up the scepter and activated the bracelets to call the suit back. He would not be carried back by War Machine, thank you.

“Try not to destroy the universe with that until then,” Strange said. It was probably said in jest, but it stung a bit anyway. Tony gave him a fake smile and they left.

“Guy’s a bit of an ass,” Rhodey commented once they were back on the street.

Well, Tony didn’t have much room to talk.

*****

Tony woke up the next day from yet another nightmare. Nothing like having proof that the guy behind that huge alien armada was still out there determined to wipe out the human race to bring the nightmares from the other side of the portal back to the surface. At least it wasn’t fucking Rogers smashing in the Arc Reactor this time, or his parents dying.

Friday recited the date, time and weather conditions while Tony calmed himself down. _Okay, that guy might still be out there, but he’s not here right now, so one thing at a time_. Also, if he was resorting to using people like Aemon, he obviously had some recruitment problems. Loki’s plan might have been shit, but there was no denying he had the menacing flair and the power to back it up. _Game of Thrones_ reject, not so much.

Tony had checked in with Vision and his parents last night after he’d gotten back, and updated everyone about what they’d learned and Strange’s impending visit. Then he’d had to deal with the bureaucracy of the Avengers’ intervention before he could finally crash.

“Boss, remember that you are expected at court at ten.”

“Yeah, I know.” He still had time enough for a shower and something to eat.

“Also, Mrs Stark would like you to join them for breakfast.”

“Tell them I’ll be right there.”

He got out of the elevator on their floor some twenty minutes later. The table was set with a variety of delicious pastries. He was going to get fat if he kept going like this.

“Morning, mom, dad.” It really was morning this time. _Look at me, keeping normal hours_. “I kinda have to hurry today, sorry. Got court.”

Being hugged by his mom would never get old, he thought, still marveling that he had this again. His mom, alive and well, hugging him. Aemon had given him a fantastic gift and he didn’t even know it.

“You look a bit pale, honey.”

“It’s nothing, mom, too much time indoors, that’s all.” And the nightmares. And the stress. No need to mention those, though.

She gave him an unconvinced look before steering him to the table and plying him with food.

“Are we going to meet this Strange guy?” His father asked, sipping his coffee.

“Later, I guess. I need to talk to him first, explain our theory.”

“What about the… what was his name again?”

“Aemon the Great.” He tried to say it with a straight face and failed miserably. Howard snorted. “It’s ridiculous, I know. Strange is keeping him for now, before we can work out a more permanent solution with the Accords Panel. Not sure a regular prison will hold him.” As much as Tony disliked the idea of the Raft, there was no doubt that a prison for enhanced people was necessary. More and more enhanced were cropping up, and not all of them were law abiding citizens. There was still a lot of work to be done in legislation and contingency plans for that kind of potential criminals, including those whose enhancements were of a magical nature. Hopefully Strange would be able to help them with that.

Maria was still trying to get him to eat more when Friday announced it was time to leave. While Tony usually liked to make an entrance, this time he was going to drive to court instead of flying in. This wasn’t about him, after all, and he didn’t want any distractions from the real issue, namely Ross’s criminal behavior.

“I’ll see you guys later.”

*****

Tony stayed at the courthouse most of the day. Since he’d had quite a lot of dealings with Ross over the years, there was plenty to go over, including Ross’s obsession with Bruce and the Hulk. It was great to see the former General fuming in his seat with every new question and answer. And, of course, Tony knew how to work a room (or a jury). Ross would end up in jail, of that there was no doubt.

He was starving by the time he finally got back to the Tower, and was happy to see that the others had set up some food up in the penthouse. Rhodey and Hope had spent the day discussing Aemon’s situation with the Accords Panel and Strange. Because Strange hadn’t signed the Accords yet, though he was going to as soon as possible, he didn’t have the authority to keep Aemon, so he would be transferred to a holding facility as soon as they could be assured he wouldn’t be able to escape, which might mean the power suppressing collar. Tony had been uncomfortable seeing Wanda in it, but he had to admit that in her case it had been necessary. She was dangerous, had shitty control of her powers and seemed rather prone to violence. People had already been afraid of her, now it was even worse. Neither she nor Rogers had done her case any favors by deciding to put themselves above the law, answerable to no one.

Strange arrived soon afterwards and Tony and the others met him in the Avengers conference room, while Howard and Maria waited at the penthouse. It took a while to explain the situation, analyze the scepter and all the energy readings they’d managed to get.

“I believe this is one of the Infinity Stones,” Strange said, waving his hands over the scepter and squinting in Vision’s direction. “I have another one at the Sanctum.”

“Wait, wait, you _have_ one?” Rhodey asked.

“It has been in the keeping of the Sorcerer Supreme for several centuries, protected.”

“Which one is it? This one and the one you have?” Thor had said there were six, each with a specific domain, and two others had popped out in the last few years, aside from the Tesseract and the Mind Stone.

“The one at the Sanctum is Time. I believe this must be Soul.”

“Soul,” Tony repeated. It sounded… very ominous.

“Yes. It is believed that it can resurrect the dead, as well as trap the souls of the living.”

Well, shit. “And are the resurrected going to stay that way?”

Strange shrugged. “I don’t know, but I believe so. I will need to examine your parents.”

“How did Aemon get it? I mean, shouldn’t they have kept a better eye on it, if this thing is supposed to be so powerful?” Hope asked.

“He said someone gave it to him, to use it to kill me and get the Mind Stone from Vision. I suppose they didn’t expect him to fuck it up so badly.”

“The Stones are dangerous and must be handled with care. Perhaps whoever gave it to him simply thought he was expandable, should something go wrong. It is possible this person will try to retrieve the scepter, now that he’s lost it.”

“Right, so we guard it very carefully,” Rhodey said.

“I can take it to the Sanctum.”

Bruce shook his head. “I think it’s probably better not to have two of them in the same place.”

“If you keep it, there will be two of them here as well.” Strange gestured at Vision.

“But that’s… well, not quite the same,” Tony said. Vision was a person, not a thing they were keeping in a vault. And taking Vision would not be easy. Unlike an object, even a magical object, he could defend himself. “I still think it’s better to keep it here. No offense to your Hogwarts-like home, but the Tower has better security, what with Friday and us and everything.”

“I would like to place protective wards around it anyway, just in case.”

That sounded reasonable. “Fine by me.”

“Let’s go check on your parents then.”

After a thorough examination (which looked like a lot of hand waving to Tony), Strange pronounced that Howard and Maria were fine. Tony hadn’t realized how worried he’d been until he’d heard those words. They were fine. Miraculously, he had his parents back. Now all he had to do was make sure they stayed that way.

He had a second chance, and he was not going to waste it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, people. It's mostly done. Only a short epilogue left to tie up some loose ends. Thank you so much for reading.


	11. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we've come to the end. Once again, thank you so much to everyone who commented and kudos'ed. I'm really happy that you guys liked this.

They were in the workshop, the three of them; Howard, Maria and their son. Tony was showing them some of his inventions and Maria was mesmerized by the holographic schematics, smiling proudly even though she probably didn’t understand what they showed (her degree was in business, not engineering). It was nice.

It had been two weeks since they had “arrived” and they were still trying to get themselves sorted out. It had been agreed that they would stay in the apartment they’d been given (which Maria intended to redecorate and personalize) and Tony had given Howard some lab space, with modern equipment and materials. He hadn’t had much time to truly explore it yet, but he was looking forward to it.

The biggest problem, however, was what to do about their identities. Tony didn’t think publicly announcing their resurrection was a good idea – it raised far too many questions and it might make others want to take a chance in bringing their loved ones back, which was probably not even possible, since it’d been an accident in the first place. So they would probably need new identities. While a part of Howard relished the opportunity to be someone else and shed all the burden and responsibility of being Howard Stark, another part didn’t want to let go of his name and history. For now they were in limbo, waiting for a more permanent solution. Maria didn’t seem bothered, she was happy to just spend time with Tony and his friends. If she missed their own time, she was doing a good job of hiding it.

Surprisingly (or maybe not really), Howard and Maria had gotten closer. Having only each other as something familiar had helped them reconnect. They had probably spent more time together in the last two weeks than they had in the previous years, and Howard was reminded of why he’d married her in the first place. His relationship with Tony had also gotten better, though it could have hardly gotten worse than his son thinking Howard didn’t give a shit about him. They’d had a few arguments, of course, but not the awful type that sent him straight to the liquor cabinet in anger and frustration. Tony had suggested they see a therapist, either separately or together, as soon as they could find someone trustworthy. Howard wasn’t exactly thrilled by the idea, but he was willing to give it a shot – if Tony could do it, so could he. Still, despite the improvement there was still a long way to go and a lot of things to catch up on, both about the world and Tony’s life – all those details that had been glossed over so far (and that he was rather weary of, considering what he already knew).

Maria had yet to be told the whole story about the Avengers and all the crap they’d put Tony through. Howard knew she was going to be furious when she found out, just like he had been. Tony had asked to be the one to tell her, which was just as well as far as Howard was concerned. He still got angry whenever he thought about what Tony had suffered in the hands of people he was supposed to be able to trust. Howard wanted Steve and his followers caught and brought to justice (and he was sure his wife would feel the same way), and he also wanted the chance to tell that asshole exactly what he thought about him.

After the confirmation from Strange that they were here to stay, things had been both better and worse. It was a relief to have answers and to be able to start re-planning their lives while at the same time facing the fact that life as they knew it was over. There was just a lot to process and there had been so much going on in the last week that it hadn’t quite sunk in yet how different things would be from now on – it still felt a bit like a bizarre vacation.

They had both had their share of nightmares of dying, waking up shaky and scared and clinging to each other. Howard had also had dreams of Steve killing Tony with that fucking shield while he stood paralyzed, unable to do anything to stop him. Tony had told him the shield was no longer in Steve’s possession, and Howard’s first thought had been to destroy it – not an easy thing to do considering the damn thing was pure vibranium (and what the fuck had Steve been thinking; he knew how strong that things was, how could he not know what kind of damage it would do to Tony?). One thing was certain, though; Steve would never get his hands on it again, not unless it was over Howard’s dead body (which was another painful thing to think about – he had once actually been a dead body, and one that Steve had ignored for Barnes’s sake at that).

Howard had spent an unhealthy amount of time going over everything he remembered about Steve (the real Steve, not the propaganda icon), trying to understand how he could have been so completely wrong about him. Obie was somewhat easier to understand, even if that betrayal also stung like a son of a bitch. Obie had always been cunning and ambitious, which was what had made him such a great businessman, and he could be ruthless in going after what he wanted, so it wasn’t a total stretch to think he’d put making money ahead of people, though it still pissed Howard off that loyalty apparently meant nothing to the man. Steve, on the other hand, had called himself a good guy, a moral guy, a guy who fought for the right thing, for the right ideals. How did a man that claimed to hate bullies become one himself? Because from everything Howard had seen, Steve had disliked Tony from day one (for reason still utterly incomprehensible to him) and had used his superior strength against his son every chance he’d got. It seemed like he really had forgotten what it was like to be the little guy, had believe in his own hype far too much.

“Dad?”

Tony’s voice snapped him out of his angry funk and Howard made an effort to put his disgust aside and focus on the good things. Whatever Steve had done, however much he’d tried, Tony was still here, alive and strong, being a hero with the support of his real friends and, it seemed, most of the world.

Steve would have to resurface eventually, and when he did he would have to face the consequences of his actions. For now Howard could wait, and focus on his family, this second chance he’d been given to be a better man and a better father. He no longer had the company to worry about, so he could devote all his time and energy to repairing his relationship with his son (and, to a lesser extent, his wife) and getting his own shit together. He didn’t know what would happen, but for the first time in a long time, Howard was actually optimistic about the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, as mentioned previously, I have three sequels planned for this. The first will begin to be posted on Sunday, since it's already finished. 
> 
> The one with the confrontation between the Starks and the ExVengers (titled Consequences) is in progress. I currently have 2 and a half chapters done, but I don't know yet how many there will be. I will only begin posting it when it's finished (because I don't really trust myself and I don't want to leave people hanging).
> 
> The other one will focus on Maria, and though that's going rather more slowly, it is going.
> 
> So stay tuned guys. And again, thank you.
> 
> ETA: This fic now has a Russian translation by Cis_moll. You can find it [here](https://ficbook.net/readfic/7032889/17927621?status=1&show_comments=1&rnd=0.6233064991923463#com65105844) (off site link).


End file.
